
cte ^"'y^ 




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COFBRIuIIT DEPOSn 



CoPU ^ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

^n^ (30|ii|ri3^ l^u 

Shelf..... 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




1892 Columbian Year 1893 



Executive and Legislative Branches 



OF THE 



Government of Philadelphia 



AND 



World's Fair Commissioners 




iIi:Aii (i|- riii-. Cnv ( hivkknmknt. 

i:i>WlX S. STUAltT, 
Mnyiir of tlic City of Pliiladr'nhia. 




PtTCR liONROt 



Joint Spkciai, Committki-: ok Pmi,Ai)Ki.riiiA ('(UNcii.s on Woim.p's Citi.i mim an I.xim.m i hn. 




eiv^t i .icKCa 



.loiNT Sl'IXIAI. CoMMlTTKi: oK I'll I I.A lii:i.lMl I A CdINCH.S ON Wdlll.D's ( < Jl.CM 111 AN" ExrOSlTIOX. 



4r 



■\ 




1>1-\\SVI.V\\IA's HkIMIKSKNTATIVKS on TIIK XATIONAI. ('(.UMr.IAN ( (.MMISSIDN. 

Fhtki; a. I*.. WiDKM'.K, ( '(.iiiiiiissioiKT-:it-lar,i,'i'. 

Col.. K. ISincK Hkkktts, 



.lollN W. WooDSlDK, 



National < 'oiiinii>si(>nci-s. 



Select Council 

FOR THE 

Year Commencing First Monday in April, 1893 
James L. Miles, President. * 



WAKDS. 

I. PENROSE A. McCLAlX, 

153."> iMoyanioiising Avenue. 

2. JAMES IIAC.AN, 

912 Cliiistiaii Street. 

3.1 HARRY HUNTER, 

7:V2 Simtli Twelt'th Street. 

4. WIIJ.IAM Mc.MlM.l.EX, 

C)!!! South Ninth Street. 

5. JAMES B. ANDERSON, 

204 W. Washington Square. 

6. THOMAS J. RYAN, 

244 Crown Street. 

7. SAMUEL F. HOUSEMAN, 

1411 Uonitiard Street. 

8. THEODORE M. ETTINCi, 

Room 7'-'5, Drexel Building. 

9. ROBERT R. BRINGHURST, 

38 North Eleventh Street. 

10. F. A. BALLTNGER, 

21G N. Thirteenth St. 

II. WILLIAM P.BECKER, 

151 Fairniount Avenue. 

12. FRANK .SCHANZ, 

13. .FAMES L. MILES, 



414 Green Street. 
524 Walnut Street. 



14. Wl LLIAM G. RUTHERl'ORD, 

G70 Bankson Street. 

15. FRANK A. GILBERT, 

1727 Faiiinouiit Avenue. 

16. HENRY CL.\Y% 

9flC) North Si.xth Street. 

17. CHARLES KITCHEXMAN, 

322 Thompson Street. 

18. ISAAC D.HETZELL, 

:!22 Riclinionil Street. 

19. THOMAS J. ROSE, 

14:i Sus(|uohanna Avenue. 

20. t W.M. RODENHAUSKN, 

1445 Franklin Street. 



AVARDS. 

21. JOSEPH I\r. ADAMS, 

l.'i) Seville Street, Manayunk. 

22. WJI. F. BROWN, 

0249 North 27th St., Cjiestnut Hill. 

23. J. EMORY BYRAM, 

4645 Penn Street, Frankfonl. 

24. SGEORtJE W. KENDRICK, Jr.. 

"507 Baring Street. 

25. WILBUR F. SHORT, 

2915 Kichmond Street. 

26. THOMAS B. McAVOY, 

1 52(5 South Broad Street. 

27. EDWARD W. PATTON, 

3926 Walnut Street. 

28. WILLIAM McMURRAY, 

1:M5 Arch Street. 

29. JOHN F:. HANIFEN, 

Tlionipson and Savery Streets. 

30. WILLIA.M .McCOACH, 

1607 Sansom Street. 

31. WATSON D. UPPERMAN, 

2359 E. Susqiiehani a Ave. 

32. FRANKLIN M. HARRIS, 

1011 Filbert Street. 

33. :milton s. apple, 

■ 2864 North Fifth Street. 

34. ♦[W. HARRY STIRLING, 

il Strawberry Street. 

35. EDW.VRD MORKELL, 

505 Chestnut Street. 

36. HUGH BLACK, 

1133 South Twenty-I'ourtli Street. 

37. CHAS. A. SCHAUFLER, 

915 Dauphin Street. 



JOSEPH H. PAIST, Chief Clerk, 

1821 Mount Vernon Street. 
HENRY W. ROBERTSON, Assist. Clerk, 

1915 Market .St reel. 
JAMICS FR.VNKLIN, Scrg't-at-Arms, 

1.523 Christian Street. 



* Succeeding James It. (iaies, who retired Ajiril, 1S93. 

■]■ Succeeding Peter Monroe, who retired April, l.>93. « 

I Succeeding Thomas M. Hamiuett, who retireil .\iiril, 1S93. 

i. Succeeding John Morrisson, who retired .\pril, 1893. 

1[ Succeeding B. S. C. Thomas, who retired April, 1S93. 



Common Council 



KOK TIIK 



\yee\r (2osr\sx\Gi^Gh^g ^Irsf ^y)or%4^y h^ ^Jbril, ^^93. 



iA^EISCei- HTXRTTUVKN. PREsioeNT. 



WARDS. 

1. WILLIAM A. MILLER, IRIi) South Fourth Street. 
JOHN M. .STKATTON, Uil.i Pussyuiik Avenue. 
JOSKPH V. PORTKR, i:ilO South Fourth Street. 
A. M. L()UUENSLAt;i:U. :v::i Oii-com street. 

. JUDSON C. KHITH, lsi7 South Seventh Street. 
ROBKRT DKNNY, 1 12(1 South Sixth Street. 
SAMUEL L. KlNG.Wl Reed Street. 

2. CHARLES F. ISKMINGER, (i28 Federal Street. 
ANDREW W. FALBEY, 'i:!:! Federal Street. 
•lOllN L. HAROLD, !I17 P;is3yuiik Avenue. 

3. HIRA.M BOWMAN, 801 South Filth Street. 

4. SA.MUEL W. BAIZLEY, 117 CoiiRress Street. 

5. JOHN F. REIDENBACH, 1'27 Swauwiek Street. 
CHARLES W. NAULTY, 2M Pine Street. 

6. WILLIAM VAN OSTEN, 10 North Filth Street. 

7. CHARLES SEGER, 40 South Sixth Street. 
GEORGE II. WILSON, 1130 Lombard Street. 
ANDREW F. STEVENS, Jr., I:i45 Lombard Street. (1) 

8. WENOEL HARTMAN, 125 South Seventh Street. 
CHARLES Y. AUDENR1ED,50d Chestnut Street. 

9. CHARLES ROBERTS, 1716 Areh Street. 

10. NATHAN T. LEWIS, 222 North Ninth Street. 
BENNETT L. SMEDLEY, 2050 Vine Street. 
WILLIAM H. GARRETT. 146 North Thirteenth Street. 

11. WILLIAM J. CARTER, :t49 North Front Street. 

12. WM. A. I,. RIEGEL, M.D., 468 North Fourth Street. (2) 

13. JAMES C. COLLINS, 327 North Front Street. 
ELLSWORTH H. HULTS, 863 North Seventh Street. 

14. JOHN T. STAUFFKR, 333 N. Twelfth Street. 

JOHN N. HORTON, 1318 Spring Garden Str-!et. (3) 

JOHN A. FOREPAUGH, 1333 Brown Street. 

15. USELMA C. SMITH, 707 Walnut Street. 
ALE.XANDER COLVILLE, 528 North Twenty-second St. 
DAVID C. CLEAVER, 1825 Spring Garden Street. 
CHARLES L. BROWN, 523 Chestnut Street. 

HENRY W. LAMBIRTH,«31 North Nineteenth Street. (4) 
JOSEPH F. Stt'OPE,403 Glrard Building. (4) 

16. SAMUEL S. LOWENSTElN,it44 North Filth Street. 
CHARLES J. H AUGER, 1139 St. Jolin Street. 

17. JAMES E. McLaughlin, 220 Oxford Street. 

JACOB ROTH. 1318 Germantowu Avenue. (.")) 

18. JOSEPH H. STRAUB, 113 South Fifth Street. 
J. F. HENDERSON, 6.16 Hockley Street. 
WILLIAM ROWEN,2ol East Girard Avenue. 
AGNEW MacBKIDE, 401 Drexel Building. 

19. THOMAS FIRTH, 123 Susquehanna Avenue. 
ROBERT MARKMANN, 2425 North Seventh Street. 
WILLIAM M. GEARY, 11126 North Third Street. 

G. EDW. SCMILEGKLMII.CH, 1714 Frankford Avenue. 
J. GOlilx.iN SlIOWAKER, 2362 Fairhill Street. (6) 

EDWARD BUCHH(1LZ,2(107 Gerniantown Avenue. (I.) 
ROBT W B. CORNELIUS. M. D., 2512 North Sixth Street. 

20. A. ATWOOD GRACE, 523 Chestnut Street. 
CHARLES K. SMITH, 123 Arch Street. 
MORRIS M. CAVEROW, 970 Hutchinson Street. 
HAKKY P. CBOWELL, 1731 North Eighth Street. . 
GEORGE HAWKES, 1.508 North Seventh Street. 
GEORGE W. CONRAD, 1411 Frankin Street. (7) 

21. WM. F. DIXON, 102 Leverington Ave., Manayunk. 
JOSIAH LINTON, 112 N. Front Street. 

A., ELT..WOOD JONES, 26 Sum.ao Street, Manayunk. (8) 

22. THOMAS MEEHAN, Chew St. below Gorgas Lu., Gtn. 
GEORGE E. FORD, 927 Chestnut Street. (9) 
JACOB J. SEEDS, 115 North Seventh Street. 
SAMUEL GOODMAN, 621 Chestnut Street. 

JOHN W. DAVIDSON, 4529 Rubicam Ave., Gtn. (10) 



WARDS. 

23. WILLIAM HORROCKS, 4431 Frankford Avenue. 
JONATHAN HAERTTEK, 4535 Mulberry St., Frankford. 

24. JAMES M. WEST, N. W. Cor. 4th & Chestnut Sis. 

PHILIP RUDOLPH, 306 North Fortleih Street. 
WILLIAM A. PORTER, 515 North Thirtythinl Street. 
GUSTAV R. SCHAEFER, 29S Bullilt P.uil.liiig. (II) 

FREDERICK W. EGGELING, Cor. Aspen & Brooklyn (11) 
JOHN McPARLAND, 622 Brooklyn Street. 

25. WILLIAM R. KNIGHT, Jit., 355.5 Kensington Avenue. 
HUGH T. PIGOTT, 2756 Church St., Bridesburg. 
FREDERICK C. SIMON, 22 North Seventh Street. 
FRANKLIN REED, 3170 Richmond Street. (12) 

26. EDWARD A. ANDERSON, 206 South Seventh Street. 
THOMAS HUNTER, M. D.. 1500 Wharton Street. 
CHRISTOPHER C. B ASTIAN, Passyunk Av. S. of loth St. 
S. C. AIMAN. 1604 S. Sixteenth Street. (13) 

27. LEWIS W. MOORE. 108 South Fortieth Street. 
JOHN M. WALTON, 4205 Chester Avenue. 

J. WARNER GOHEEN.227 South Sixth Street. (II) 

CHAS. E. CONNELL, 60th and Greenway Avenue. 

28. HIRAM A. MILLER, 1609 Allegheny Avenue. 
JACOB T. ROSSELL, 408 North Third Street. 
Vacancy. 

GEORGE J. JF.WILL, 2208 North Eighleenlh Street. (15) 



(15) 



31. 



FREDERICK STEHLE, .3426 Ridge Avenue 

29. ELIAS P. SMITHERS, 219 South Sixth Street, 
JOHN L. BALDWIN, 1530 Stillnian Street. 
WILLIAM B. SOUDER, 2410 Columbia Avenue. 
JOSEPH MARTIN, M. D., 2009 Columbia Avenue. 
CLAYTON M. HUNSICKER, 1842 Master Street. 
WILLIAM H. SHOEMAKER, 2033 North College Avenue. 

30. WM. J. POLLOCK, 7.34 S. Seventeenth Street. 
JOHN IRVINE, 1538 South Street. 
WILLIAM H. WILSON, 2222 St. Alban's Place. 
ROBERT S. LEITHEAD, 2024 Otis Street. 
JOHN PALLATT, 2301 E. Cumberland Street. 
WILLIAM C. HADDOCK, 2219 East Y'ork Street. 
GEORGE \V. KNOLL, 2620 Coral Street. 

32. WILLIAM H. JAMES, N. E. Cor. Fifth and Chestnut Sts, 

FREDERICK A. WHITE, M. D., 1812 N. 27th Street. 
ROBKRT W. FINLETTER, 1937 N. Twelfth Street. 
NORRIS E. HENDERSON, 1929 North Twelfih St. 

33. R. C. HORR, 2728 North Broad Street. 
SAMUEL LAMOND, 433 East Somerset Street. 
JOHN STEWART, 2710 Fairhill Street. 
AK'IHUR T. WADSWOKTH, 922 West Cambria St 

34. THOS. L. HICKS, 23 North Juniper Street. 
JOHN T. STRICKLAND, 303 North Sixly-nfih Strei 
JOSEPH II. BROWN, Holmesburg. 

JAMES BAWN,1M9 Federal Street. 

SAMUEL K. STINGER, 3124 \l-barlon Street. 

ARfHUR R. H. MORROW, 2039 Morris Street. 
JAMES B. WALLS, 2421 North Tenth Street. 

AUSTIN W. BENNETT, 1035 Dauphin Str.et. 



(16,1 



35. 



37. 



JOHN ECKSTEIN, Chief Clerk, 

I.505 Cenlennial Avenue. 
GEO. W. KOCHERSPERGER, Assistant Clerk, 

1903 N. Eleventh St.eet. 
GAVIN NEILSON, Assistant Clerk, 

Mt. Pleasant Avenue, Gerniantown. 
W. H. FELTON, Assistant Clerk, 

860 North Forly-second Street. 
GKORGK W. JOHNSON, Scrgeanl-at- Arms, 

2312 Parrlsh Street 



(I) Succeeding Audrew Kinkaid. who retired April, 1893. (2) Succeeding James H. Linn, who retired Ai.ril, 1893. (3) Succeed- 
ing Samuel H. Fisher, who retired April, 1H93. (4) Siiceeertiug William E. Lindsley and Michael J. F«hy. who retired April. ih93. 
(5) Succeeding Sebastian Seiberlich, who retired April, 1893. (6) Succeeding William Deacon and Robert Ingram, who retired April 
1893. (7) Succeeding WilliHm Rodenhausen. who retin-d A|.ril. 1H93. (8) Succeeding C. P. Cnnnany, who retired April. Is93. 
(9) Died. April, 1893. (10) Suereedins Geiirgg B. Eilward-. who retired April. 1893. (11) Succeeding George W. Keudrick and W ui 
Griffith whoretir.d April. 18;)3. (i2) Succei-ding Coura 1 S. Wilson, who retired April. 1x93. (13) Succeeding A. J. Wliitiinehnm 
who retired April, \>'.a. (14) Succeeding William M. Smith, who died, April. 1892. (15) Succ.eding John D. Heins and Albert!). 
WilH(m, who retired April. 1893. (16) Sueeee<ling George Mvers, who retired April, 1893. (17) Succeeding Ntithan F. Tomlin, who 
reiired April, 1x93. (18) Succeeding Dr. C. W. Karsner, who retired April, 1893. (19) Succeeding' Rudolph E. Rake, who relir.d 
April, 1893. 



PHILADELPHIA 



THE STORY OF 



AN AMERICAN CITY 

/ 

BY GEORGE EDWARD VICKERS 



ISSUED BY THE 



CITY OF PHILADELPHIA 



UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE 



Joint Special Committee of Councils 



ON 



WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION 



■".'^ il2 189? 




'^^ 



PHILADELPHIA 
DUNLAP PRINTING COMPANY, 1306-8-10 FILBERT STREET 

1803 



y 1 5^ 

,3 



Entered according to Act of Cougroso, in the year 189^, by 
In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Wasliingtoii, I). 




('AIM'KNTKU'S Jl.VI.I,, 

ClR'stiHit Si. liflow I'ourtli St. Phice of ineetiiii^ of First .Viiu'riciin ('oM<;n 



PHILADELPHIA . 



THE STORV OF 7^N K7UTERI075N OITV. 



CIIAPTER I. 



SoMK Facts Concerning thk Eakly History of the Western Continent — CoLrMBrs 
AND His Contemporaries — The Early Norse Explorers — The iNFLrx of Emi- 
grants, Adventurers, Capitalists, and the Resvlt. 

IX tlie yt'ur oightoiii liuiKlird and ninety-two, tlie four liundredth 
anniversary of the discovery of tlie \\''estern Continent by C'olumljus, 

the people of the American nation paused in their busy pursuit of 
varied avocations and began to take a look backward. The occasion 
and tlie circumstances under which the diversion was indulged were 
not untimely. The growth of the land in wealth and poindation dur- 
ing the preceding thirty years had been on a scale without precedent 
in any similar period since tlie beginning of its history. The long 
term of peace enjoyed by the country, commencing with the close of 
the Civil AVar in eighteen hundred and sixty-five, afforded opportunity 
for the development of its immense and varied resources. The vast, 
territory, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the frozen 
region of the St. Lawrence to the warm clime of the jNIexican CJulf, had 
been spanned and girded by railways until every section of its enormous 
extent was not only easily accessible but available for the settlement of 
man. 

So numerous and favorable^ were the means of rapid communica- 
tion from one quarter of tlie continent to the other that in parts, hitherto 
remote and unsettled, cities had sprung uj) and become great in spaces 
of time so In-ief as to render their rise almost miraculous. The large 
area of land known to the older })opulation of the States on the 
Atlantic coast as the Great West — a land of mystery, lu-actically unex- 
plored, and peopled by savages fifty years before — had succumbed to 
the swift march of civilization, and its numerous towns, with their 



6 THE STUllY UF AN AMERICAN CITY. 

stu|»<'iitl( uis (•oinnicrcial iiitci'csls, ('oinpctcd with the old cities of the 
J'^ast for tlic honor of superiority in the iiuiiihcr of iiihahitants as well 
as iii material weahh. 'The total j»u])ulatioii ol' the eountrv at this 
time, as ase(>rtaino(l hy the census, was almost .sixty-li\'e million souls. 
Of its political (lixisions, consisting of forty-four States, six Territories 
and the District of C'olunil)ia, in which was located its capital, moi-e 
than half the number, formei'ly composiuL;- the unsurveyed and un- 
broken West, had been admitted into the Union of States within lifty 
years. 

Tlie atlvent of railroads in the new land had given an unwonted 
stimulus to the ])rogress of the people ; and the new cities of the western 
jiortion of the country Avere hurried into being and then into full growth 
with a rapidity that left them without the usual ex})erienee or the 
memories of youth, thus adding to the map of the Republic, from time 
to time, towns unknown save to contemporaneous history, which, in 
some instances, aspired to a rivalry with renowned cities of the East, 
the advance and develoi)ment of which were the work of centuries. 
That the new but quick-maturing cities were not disturbed by the 
prospect of standing in full stature before the eyes of famed and culture(l 
towns invested with the prestige of the historic achievements and the 
social eminence of nine generations, l)ut acce])ted without concern, the 
situation of their sudden evolution from the original settler's hut to a 
comparison in size and wealth with the oldest and ])roudest of their 
sisters, is a fact that loses its novelty in the consideration of the char- 
acter of the ])eo])le and of the condition of the times. 

It may, ])erha})s, be regarded as not remarkable that the thoughts 
and modes of life of the citizens, especially in the newer section of the 
land, kept pace, in a measure, with the growth of tlieir towns while not 
sei'N'ing to render them unimpressionable on the subject of the country's 
past, nor to make it difficult to arouse in their minds a sense of the 
pro])riety of commemorating nota]>le occurrences in its history. Tlie 
8])irit of universal consent in which the 2)roposal to celebrate the event 
of the discovery was received throughout the nation illustrated the <lis- 
position, at least, of the race which, after a lajjse of foui- centuries, 
found itself a\vakene(l to an unusual degi-ee to the realization of its 
enjoyment of the heritage (liscio.sed to civilization by the Italian navi- 
gator who, ])ronipted by dreams of fame and alHuence, had .sailed 
westward in search of the unknown IVom the coast of Spain. 

If the nation which owned the discoverer, as a native, or the 
eountrv under whose auspices he set out on the eventful voyage, had 
either of them been accorded by the other jiowers of the earth the 



■ .'V 







Independence Hall, Chestnut St. below Sixth St. 
Second place of meetiu<T of American Congress, where the Declaration of Independence was signed. 



THE FAMOUS VOYAGE OF ERIC. 



iiii(]is|)Utc(l ])i-ivilei;L' ol' jxjssussiiig the Culumljiaii land it would not in 
this day be peopled by a race speaking the tongue of the Anglo-Saxon 
and its lour hundrcil years history would he more easily siinj)lified. 
That the origin and eharaeter of the people comprehended by the 
United States of ^Vmerica are widely disconnected from those of the 
]ioman and Hispanic would seem, in \icw ui' the exclusive represen- 
tation of tliose nationalities in the person of thy original vovager, to 
require exi)lanation. The consideration of the fact, however, so familiar 
to the world, that the fruits of great discoveries, whether relating to 
the earth's jihysieal system, to chemistry or to articles of general 
utility produced by man's inventive faculty, are sometimes enjoved,. 
not by the discoverer or liis kindred, but by others in nowise res])onsible 
for their existence, may servo to crigr;--£t a reason why a people, other 
than those of the nation of Columbus or of the country of his later 
adoption, possess the most important and favored part of the continent 
supposed to have been first beheld by his eyes. That such supposition 
has stood the test of investigation l)y minds capable and disinterested, 
which have penetrated to a period of time five centuries before Columbus, 
it cannot be truthfully asserted ; nor can it be affirmed that if Columbus 
had failed to make the memorable voyage which landed him at San 
Salvador in October, fourteen hundred and ninety-two, the new land 
would have been discovered before the close of the next centurv. 

It is one of the grave conditions of a painstaking search for the 
truth of tradition that the mind knows not wdiere it may rest secure in 
the conviction that the object of the quest has been discovered and 
that its light, hitherto obscure, illuminates the dark and silent prospect, 
revealing much that has been hidden, and correcting, on the part of 
the vital })resent, many erroneous impressions of the luicertain })ast. 
Through the halo of glory encircling the head of Columbus, the studious 
eye of history penetrates beyond the space of six hundred years and 
discerns in the uncertain mist the figure of Eric the Red in search of 
a shore once seen by a storm-tossed Icelandic sailor, which the Norse- 
man finally reaches and names Greenland. The s])iril of adventure 
and exploration which animated the discoverer of the iec>-bound land 
was not uncommon in those of his race. \\"\\]\ the image of the form 
of Erie looming from his ancient boat on the cold Northern sea and 
gazing with curious eyes on the strange shore of Greenland, in the year 
eight hundred and seventy-six, the mind is prepared to receive without 
surj)rise the next important view that arises through the mist of cen- 
turies from the procession of Discovery. Greenland had been known to 
man for one hundred and twentv-four vears. Eric's fame as its dis- 



10 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 

<'<»\-civi' lived ill tlic ;iiiii;ils ot' Icchnid and Noi'way. The land had 
heeii largely peopled l)y IcelandiTs, and even from lar Norway came 
voyagers and settk'rs. Tlie movement was downward, .southward, 
toward the unknown continent that still slumbered in silence and 
mystery. 

In the vast solitude of an age and clime, unrelieved by flashes of 
knowledge, or by the light of recorded history, the image of Bjorne, the 
Icelander, arises, his anxious eyes peering through the mist, as his vessel 
tosses on the inhospitable sea, in a vain gaze for the sight of that 
land, discovered by the famed Eric the Red, and on which now resides 
his father, who had emigrated from Iceland. The year was one thou- 
sand. The storm, which can be no stranger to Bjorne, rises and sweeps 
his vessel far beyond Greenland, until he comes within view of a coun- 
try without snowy mountains, and which he soon discovers is not the 
place he seeks. He does not attempt to land, but turns his boat north- 
ward, anxious no doubt, in view of the fact that he has sailed far out of 
the way of the object of his search, and after bearing for three or four 
<lays in a northeasterly direction, he reaches his destination. But (.Jreen- 
land does not suit Bjorne, and after awhile he goes to Norway, the home 
■of his youth. He tells about liis voyage and the new land lie saw. 
The curiosity of his friends is aroused. They wish to know something 
about it, l)ut as lie did not go on shore, he is unable to enlighten them. 
His failure to investigate, no doubt, causes Bjorne to fall considerably 
in the estimation of his acquaintances. Public sentiment favors the 
fitting out of an expedition which shall sail in search of the new coun- 
try. Bjorne's friend, Leif Erikson, is so much impressed by what he 
hears, that he makes the recreant voyager an offer for his ship. Bjorne 
accepts, and Leif securing a crew sets sail for the unknown land. In 
the course of many days they reach a rocky island far to the southwest 
of Greenland. They name the strange place Ilelluland, which is des- 
tined after a lapse of five hundred years to l)e known as Newfound- 
land. 

Their voyage does n(jt end with the newly discovered shoix'. d'liey 
remain some days and then sail southwest and reach another countiy, 
which they name Markland ; a land destined to l)e known five centuries 
later as Nova Scotia. The success of the expedition will not allow 
their spirits to subside. Since passing the coast of (Jn^ndand they have 
discovered two new lands. Their cllbrts thus far have been I'cwarded. 
In tlie belief that they shajl discover other countries and with expec- 
tations aroused to an excessive degree they again set sail with the 
prow of their sliip still soulhwai'd. 



THE EARLY NORSE VOYAGERS. 1 [ 

111 the .s})cicc of two (lays tlicy arc witliiu si^lit of a land in a})pear- 
auce unlike the shores from whieli they ivceiitly departed, 'idieeliniate 
is temperate, the air fragrant, and the ^■ales and hills are covered with 
A'erdure. As they appi'oaeh neai'er, tiu'V behold u ijrospect which 
might alone have its similitutle in tlie story of the (Jardeii of Edeii. 
Trees laden with fruit, and vines borne down with the wild grape in 
rieh clusters, greet their wondering eyes. The aljundance of the grape 
-suggests to them a name and they call the i)lace A^inland. They 
disembark and revel in the beauty and beneficence of the new land, so 
<lifferent from the cold, bleak hills of Norway. It is the season of 
autumn, and they decide to remain in the fragrant country until S})ring. 

There is no record in detail of the experience during the winter, 
on the shore of the great new continent, of these early voyagers. The 
imagination alone may picture their delight at every new discovery in 
the animal and vegetable kingdom in the strange country. If the 
winter was severe, it was yet milder tlian the mildest in their own land, 
and they were doubtless amply provided with the skins and furs of 
beasts to preserve them from cold. They were likewise supplied with 
weapons, with which to slay beasts and fowl, and it is reasonably safe 
to assume they did not, during their entire sojourn on tlie strange 
coast, lack the chief of the necessaries of life. 

When they returned home in the following summer, all Norway 
rang with the news of their discovery. The stories of the new land, 
with its abundance of fruit growing wild, and the game running at 
large, had the effect which would be naturally expected. A fever of 
emigration seized a number of the people, including Leif Erikson's 
brother Thorwald. An expedition set out with Thorwald at its head, 
the party sailing from Norway in the year one thousand and two. In 
the course of time they reached Vinland, disembarked, and founded a 
settlement. The ship afterward returned to Norway. It is a grim 
commentary on the remorselessness of time, that although subsequent 
voyages were made by Norwegians, no trace of these adventurous 
settlers has been found, from the date of the departure of the ship 
which had carried them from their native land, down to this day. 

The ancient Vinland is supposed to have been situated on what is 
no>v the coast of Itliode Island, near Newport, though some writers are 
disposed to believe its location was on the spot known as ^Martha's 
Mnc^yard, on tlie Massachusetts coast. 

The return to Spain of Columbus after his first voyage and dis- 
covery of what may l)e termed the Southern gateway of the Western 
Continent, the I]ahama Islands, five centuries after Leif l^rikson had 



12 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 

beheld its Northeni coast, resulted in stirriiiij; U]) the adventurous spirits 
of Europe. The SoutluM-n countries especially were prolific in the 
production of exj)lorers who, actuated by various motives, set out with 
one or more shi})s for the new world. Not alone Spain, but Portugal, 
Italy and France i)articipated in the benefits of the discovery and 
added their cpiota (o tlie expeditions that s})rcad over the smooth ex- 
panse of the Southern sea. It remamed, however, for a land in the 
North to act more ])romptly than others in taking advantage of informa- 
tion derived from tlie Columbian event. Tliis country was England. 
Henry \"II was on the throne and the nation had begun to recover 
from the devastating effects of the bloody series of Wars of the Roses. 
Five years after Columbus had landed on the islands off the Southern 
portion of the Continent, or in fourteen hundred and ninety-seven, the 
Enoiish monarch sent out John and Sebastian Cabot with two shi])s 
and a considerable ]^arty also on a voyage of discovery. 

Up to this time Columbus and all Southern Europe reposed under 
the impression that the newly discovered country was a portion of India. 
It was in the hope of reaching that land of storied wealth by a short 
route that Columbus had originally set out from Spain. When he 
arrived at the islands on his first voyage, the spirit of elation and 
thanksgiving which he is reported to have displayed was due to the 
belief that he had reached the Western shore of India. The several 
natives whom lie had persuaded to accompany him to Spain were at 
once called Indians and by that name the original occupants of the new 
continent have been known ever since. 

The Cabots took a Northward course, and after sailing for many 
days through icebergs they reached the coast of what is now known as 
Labrador. While there was doubtless little in the inhospitable snow- 
covered hills of that dreary land to command admiration they experi- 
enced the satisfaction of recording their first discovery and continued 
their exploration, 'i'hey next sighted the shores of what appears on 
the map of North America as Newfoundland. After familiarizing 
themselves with the peculiarities of the new lands and their products 
and inducing several of the natives to accompany them, they sailed for 
England, taking with them also specimens of animals and fowl cap- 
tured on the strange shores. 

One year after the Cabots had discovered the northern coast, 
Columl)US sailed for the third time westward. On his second voyage, 
he had revisited the islands previously discovt'red, including those 
designated on the charts of to-day as Ilayti, San Domingo, and Cuba. 
With reference to the first named of the grouj), a melancholy revelation 



COLUMBUS AND THE CABOTS, 13 

had a\vaitc'(l him. ()iii' (jf his ships having hcuii wrecked on tlie lirst 
voyage, lie left its crew, consisting of thirty-five persons, as a colony 
in possession of the island, whicli he had iianieil Jlispaniola, and when 
he returned, it was found all had heen slain hy tlie natives, whose anger 
they had provoked hy their injustice and cruelty. That he had been 
shocke(l and distresst'd l)y the news, it may he justly imagined in view 
of the impulsive temperament of the nmii, and of the undoubtedly 
fine sensibilities of liis nature. The third and most momentous of 
his expeditions found him with more experience with the climate, the 
latitude and the natives, and less dis})osed to tarry among the islands 
already taken possession of in the name of the sovereigns of .Spain. 
He sailed southwest, still resting under tlie delusion that he had reached 
the western coast of India. To a mind imlnied with the spirit of 
modern times, having in view the methods in use for the C|uick dispatch 
of business, the rapid adaptation of means to ends, and the readiness 
of men to seize and possess themselves of things of worldly value to 
which tlie consideration of priority of right may justify tlieir claim, 
even though the worth of what they strive for may not attain to that 
of an entire continent, it would appear singular that six years had been 
allowed to 2^f^ss, and three voyages had been made, before the discoverer 
and the nation wdnch supported his undertaking ascertained the stupen- 
dous truth, that the numerous islands disclosed to their eyes had no 
connection with India, and that a few leagues further west lay the 
greatest of the continents of tlie world. The result of this third voyage 
was the discovery of the main land of the new country at the mouth 
of the Orinoco River in South America, on the coast of what is now 
Venezuela. 

In the meanwhile, the English voyagers, the Cabots, had been 
more successful in the space of time employed, if not more enterprising. 
Their first voyage had resulted in the discovery of the continent itself, 
at its northern coast, or in its rediscovery, since they had followed the 
course of the hardy Norwegians under Leif Erikson, tive hundred years 
before. They had returne(l to their native clime with the story of their 
voyage, its products and its results ])efore Columbus descried the lower 
portion of the continent, and })rior to the astounding revelation, to the 
people of Southern Euro])e es})ecially, that tlie strange land was not 
India, but a new world hitherto unknown to Eastern civilization. 

The return of the ('al)ots to England and the arrival subsequently 
of Columbus in Spain from his third voyage, with its momentous 
results were sufficient to excite and dazzle Europe. Thenceforth for 
more than one hundred years, history presents the spectacle of an 



14 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 



iiiibroktMi })r()cc'ssiun of I'xploix'i's, advciiturcrs, capitalists, and royally 
coniinissioiicd agents pouring into tlic new land, and taking tlicii' ways in 
many and various directions. Up great rivers, through luibroken wilds, 
across ruuued mountains, around vast lakes and over barriers seem- 
ingly impenctral)le, daring men made their journeys, fighting peaceable 
natives and })er})etrating upon them glaring atrocities in some cases; 
assailed and massacred by tlie original possessors of the soil in others; 
one expedition plundering and murdering the red men ; another seeking 
to pacify and to convert them to the religion of the Roman Churcli ; 
one band with prayer book and the offerings of peace; the othei' with 
sword and torch and the ever ready proclamation of indiscriminate war. 

From the swift infiux into the new land with its hapless people, 
of civilization with its benefits and its evils, the mind may digress long 
enoush to note a touch of human nature in connection with an incident 
tliat led to an important development. Among the early emigrants 
from Spain, who sought to improve their condition on the isles 
discovered l)y Columbus on his first voyage, was Nunez de Balboa. 
He landed at Hispaniola and began life there in a small way as a 
farmer. The venture proA^cd unfortunate, the emigrant farmer becom- 
ing involved in debt. With creditors about him, and the spectacle of 
a Spanish dungeon before his eyes, the bankrupt induced some sympa- 
thizing friends to hide him in a hogshead, label it "victuals," and 
place it on board a ship bound for the Gulf of Mexico. A\dien the 
vessel was at sea, beyond the reach of the money lenders, the fugitive 
pushed the lightly fcistened head from the cask, and rose before captain 
and crew a towering, living, human form, much to their astonishment, 
and, as history records, not a little to their fright. He reached the 
Isthmus of Darien, now Panama, where he landed, and having made 
himself agreeable to the Indians, married a Princess of one of the 
tribes and thereby became rich in gold and silver, a condition doubtless 
not unwelcome after his exi)erience at Hispaniola. 

In the course of time he heard the natives speak of a great ocean 
to tlie west, and being of a roving disposition, and perhaps fired with 
a zeal to distinguish himself by some important discovery, he set out 
with a large expedition, and after many hardships, reached a point 
from which was spread before his wondering eyes the vast Pacific. 
In the true spirit of the explorer of the day, he called upon the mem- 
bers of his party to witness that he took possession of the ocean in the 
name of the King and Queen of Spain. This was in fifteen hundred 
and thirteen, or fifteen years after the third voyage of Columbus, Avhich 
had resulted in the discovery of the main body of the continent. 




II<MiM. N,,. -;:. A, 



The Ihiu was ailoptfil liy ( 'oiii^m-i'ss Jmic 1 I. 1777. 






AMEUKIO VKSlTCCr 1 



If Columbus, whose zeal and spiiit had been suiiinioiied to under- 
go a test almost superlmman, ]>ri()i- to llie suceess of his efforts to even 
secure some slight consideration ol' tlic ])rqject whicli I'esulted in the 
discovery of an cntii-e hcniisplicrc, ha.d possessed a natui'c* less Ix'uevo- 
lent and simple, it is ])r()l)ahle lie avouM have died amidst riclies and 
luxurv, and Ixhmi hornc^ to tlic tonili with the honoi-s Ix'tittino' his genius, 
ami tlic inestimal)le ^■alue of liis services to Spain and to the 'work], 
instead of departing- his hfe in t'xile and ])Overty, witli his remains 
late(l to tind a resting place, tin'ough tlie heneticence of charity, on one 
of the islands wliich 1ns enterjM'ise and his ])atience had adde<l to the 
immensely increased dominion of tlie Spaniaivh In the rnsli into tlie 
new land of adventurers and of the moiv favored representatives of 
the power of Spain, followed speedily l)y tlie discovery of wealtli in 
gold and silver, in ahnndance and value almost l)eyond the power of 
man to com})ute, and without ]>arall('l in the history of the world, tlie 
figure of the original voyager was lost, and his acts for a time ol)scured 
l)y the magnificence of the shining I'iches which usurped his })lace in 
the mind of mankind. It wouM ])erliaps be accepted as a measure of 
satisfaction if history could record that the land whidi liis patience 
and fortitude revealed to civilization, had honored his achievement by 
adopting his name, but even this slight solace to the memory of one 
who died a victim of monstrous ingratitude was denied. In the year 
fourteen hundred and ninety-nine, one year after Columbus had made 
liis third voyage and discovered the main body of the country, a clever 
Florentine, Amerigo A\'s]:)ucc-i, ])aid a visit to what is in this day the 
shore of South America, and returning home, ])ublisluMl a descrip- 
tion of the new land and also a ma}) of the coast. Ho was the first 
person in Europe, according to (•ont(Mn])oraneous authority, to exjjre.ss 
the ])clief that the strange territory was not a portion of Asia, but a 
separate continent. This view of the subject turned the title of o[)inion 
in the old world, and its truth having been soon veritietl, the name of 
Amerigo in connection with the Columbian laml supplanted in tlie 
minds of the Euro})eans that of ("olumbus itselt'. 

During the entire ])(>rio<l embracing the three voyages cf Columbus 
to the new World, the mind may conteinplati' with satisfaction the 
character of the man, his abstinence from excesses, his toleration in 
dealing with his men, and \]\o moderation displa\-e(| in his treatment 
of the natives, it is I'eeoi'ded that when he and his eoni[)anions landed 
among the strangers on the occasion of his lirst voyage, the simple- 
minded men of the islands fell down and worshipped them, and by 
various manifestations niacU' known the fact that thev iv'^arded them 



18 THE STORY OF AX AMERICAN CITY. 

as su[)crior beings. There is no act of record in the hfe of Columbus 
that would give rise to the supposition Unit his course was ever different 
IVoni that which evoked the admiration and homage of the native pos- 
sessors of the soil. In his disappearance from the scene of action and 
temporary effacement from the minds of men, there appears to be nei- 
ther time nor 0})portunity to realize the importance of his services, nor 
the shame upon a nation incurred by the neglect of their recognition, 
much less to draw contrasts between his conduct and tliat of his suc- 
cessors who hastened to the shores which his enterprise had disclosed 
to the knowledge of his kind. \ 

From the mild and gentle character of the discoverer, with liis 
enlightened and considerate methods in dealing with the natives, the 
mind recoils at the contrast j)resented by the blood-stained monster, 
Cortez. This ruthless destroyer of a nation of enlightened, industrious 
and inoffensive people, sailed from Sj)ain wdth six hundred soldiers in 
the year fifteen hundred and nineteen, tw^enty-two years after Columbus 
had made his third voyage, and landing on the coast of the land now 
known as Central America, invaded the country of the Aztecs, the 
ancient site of Mexico. The hitherto happy and contented people re- 
ceived the foreigners hospitably, provided for their w^ants, and by their 
docile, submissive spirit should have won the friendship and j^rotection 
of the barbarous chief of the Spaniards. Cortez, however, had entered 
their land for spoils. The gold and silver they possessed were a suffi- 
cient incentive to the j^erpetration of massacre, and after displaying a 
spirit of benevolence which completely disarmed their innocent natures, 
he was conducted wath his men to the capital of the nation, the prede- 
cessor of the present City of Mexico, and presented to the Aztec King. 
The courtesy and hospitality with which the Spaniards were treated 
appeared to meet witli proper appreciation for a space of time sufficient 
to enalde tliem to perfect their i)lans, upon which the King was mur- 
dered, hundreds of his peoj^le slaughtered, and the remainder only 
saved by flight to the fastnesses of the mountains, wliere their l>arbar- 
ous assailants could not follow them. Cortez then plundered the city, 
taking all the gold and silver to be found, and formall}^ possessed him- 
self of the country of tlie Aztecs in the name of the King of Spain. 

The example set by this butclier and rol)l>cr was worthily imitated 
nine years later by Francis Pizarro. AVith a band of S])anish soldiers 
lie invaded Peru, and finding there a peaceful, intelligent race of peo- 
l)le ruled by Kings or Incas, he i)ut thousands of them to the sword, 
killed the King himself, and seized the land and untold quantities of 
gold and silver, in the name of the Sovereign of that same nation which 




■ •■' .M^--^- ■/^V.■■• 






THE ATROCIOUS ACTS OF COKTEZ. 21 



produced the bloody Cortcz. Tlicst> ancient people were further ad- 
Viinced in the arts and sciences and in government than any other of 
the races discovered l)y the Europeans on the new continent. They 
had cities, temples of worship, gardens and eultivati'd farms, the }tur- 
suit of husbandry being attended by intelligent methods, especially in 
the matter of the irrigation of the soil and in the care of its products. 
Their skill in the manufacture and decoration of pottery remains to 
this day reasonable cause for astonishment on the part of civilization, 
which seeks in vain for the source of their art, as well as for the deri- 
vation of their race. How long they had lived in j^eace and content- 
ment, worshipping in their temples, observing obedience to their laws 
or customs, free from the influence of the more complex civilization 
before the Spaniards came upon them and with a savagery that iinds 
few^ instances to equal it in the world, destroyed their homes, laid waste 
their lands, })illaged their towns and murdered their rulers, remains a 
mystery to this hour. 

If any doubt existed as to the purely mercenary object of the in- 
vaders or on the question of the appalling cruelty of their character, 
it would be in all probability speedily dispelled by the reflection that 
although a body of six hundred men accompanied Cortez on his expe- 
dition against the Aztecs of ancient Mexico, and a following almost 
equal in number was led by Pizarro in his invasion and conquest of 
Peru, there is not in existence at this clay out of the entire ([uota, a 
single recital tending to show the habits, the customs, or tlie manners 
of the people whose hospitality they enjoyed, and whose routine of life 
and domestic economy were so fully open to their judgment and obser- 
vation. The world might in a degree mitigate its censure upon the 
merciless acts of these blood-stained Spaniards, if there remained any 
trace of a redeeming feature in the nature of their expeditions, any 
evidence of a reluctance on their ])art toward resorting to the deeds of 
infamy which stand in their name, or of some slight disposition among 
them to pause in tluMr tierce ])ursuit after gold to note and retain for 
the benelit of civilization, the modes of life ami tlie jx'culiai" cliaracter- 
istics of the iiniocent, i)ut ancient jx'ople, their contact witli whom 
afforded sucli rare o])])ortunity for ol)taining some clue to their age and 
origin. Columbus on his retui'u from his first voyage cai'ried with him 
several of (lie natives of the newly discovered islands, treated them 
kindly, and presented them l>eforethe Sovereigns of Spain. That Cor- 
tez or Pi/.arro evinced the slightest interest in the history or in the 
character of the unfoi'tunatc race which tlieir barbarities exterminated, 
there remains not the faintest evidence, bnt in <ii'im contrast there ex- 



22 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 

ists ail a])un(laiUH' of pi'oof to establisli tliciu and their followers in the 
eyes of posterity as atrocious murderers actuated from the beginning to 
the ending of their exploits by the absorbing passion for gold. 

From these darkest of all the expeditions of pillage and blood- 
shed that disturb the prospect in connection with the early dawn of 
knowledge of the extent and character of the strange continent, the 
mind may turn to new and striking scenes occurring not on what were 
destined in later centuries to be known as the lands of Central and 
South America, but on the soil of what came to be known as the nation 
of the American United States. Twenty years after the invasion of 
Mexico by Cortez, and eight years subsequent to the conquest of Peru 
by Pizarro, a comi)anion of the latter in his expedition against the 
Aztecs, Ferdinand de Soto, set out under a royal commission from Spain, 
with a band of six hundred men, the splendor and richness of whose 
equipment were well calculated to dazzle the eyes of tlie natives, whose 
lands and possessions in silver and gold were the prospective prize. 
His destination was the vast peninsula discovered seventeen years 
before, or in the year fifteen hundred and twelve, by an expedition 
of Spaniards under Ponce de Leon, an old soldier and former com- 
panion of Columbus, named by the veteran Columbian leader, Florida. 
Ponce de Leon, who appears to have possessed all the gentle and con- 
siderate qualities of nature which characterized Columbus, his former 
chief, had been deeply impressed by the beauty of the country. Enter- 
ing; upon the undisturbed wilds of its vast territory in the season of 
Spring, he and his companions were treated to the delightful spectacle 
of flowering shrubs and vines in such profusion and variety that the 
eve was dazzled, and the brain became fairly intoxicated with tlie i)er- 
fume that was everywhere wafted upon their senses by the languid air. 
Not in the flagrant bloom of the earthly paradise alone did the charmed 
Spaniards revel and felicitate, but across their vision continually 
flitted bright winged birds in numbers and variety unlike anything 
their eyes had ever beheld. The wild natives of the flowery land 
treated the strangers kindly, and true to the exanq)le set l>y Columbus 
in the first instance on his voyage of discovery, their confidence and 
their hospitality were not abused by the memlx-i's of the ex})edition 
under Ponce do Leon. Li the feeling of exaltation and unalloyed de- 
light experienced liy the S[)anish chief, it is not dillicult to realize the 
plausibility of the story that he was led to believe there existed some- 
where in the beautiful land a fountain whose waters jjossessed the vir- 
tue of restoring youth to the aged, and that he and his followers searched 




r-'^^^ 



.«»^ 



THE EXPEDITION OF 1)E SOTA. 25 

lono; and earnestly for the magic spring and returned to their native 
hind keenly disappointed over tiieir failure to discover its location. 

The character of the man who now, after a lapse of seventeen 
years, sailed from S{)ain with a i)owerful and splendidly caparisoned 
band of followers for the land first revealed to Ponce de Leon, was some- 
what different from that of the veteran companion of Columbus. His 
expedition included priests with the emblems of the church and black- 
smiths with ample means for providing shoes for the horses of the sol- 
diers, and for repairing and sharpening their weapons. They likewise 
brought with them a herd of swine with which to furnish subsistence 
in the strange and untried land. 

Tlie party reached Tampa Bay on the west coast of the Peninsula 
in the year fifteen hundred and thirty-nine. De Soto made no effort to 
conceal to the minds of the natives the ftict that he came among them 
for conquest. The gay plumes, shining armor and gorgeous banners 
of the soldiers and the high fioating image of the cross carried by the 
priests in their sable garljs must have produced a remarkable effect upon 
the simple-minded savages who were numerous on every hand. They 
met the Spaniards at first in a spirit of submission and awe and offered 
to worship them. The stern de Soto with his eyes bent solely on dis- 
covery and conquest did not delude them, Init commanded them to 
"pray only to God in Heaven." True to his training under the blood- 
stained Pizarro, the Spanish leader treated the natives with the greatest 
cruelty. Many were killed, their villages burned and their possessions, 
wdien they were of value, taken by the ruthless hands of the soldiers. 
The acts of de Soto soon aroused the hostility of the natives. The ex- 
pedition finally reached the section of country now embraced in the 
State of Alabama, and on the site of the })resent City of Mobile a battle 
was fought with the Indians, which proved most disastrous to the na- 
tives. Eighteen Spaniards were killed and the number of natives slain 
was upward of two tliousand five hundred. The event occurred in the 
year fifteen hundred and forty. 

The adventurers javssed on in the direction of northwest, seeking 
for gold and silver and failing to find any. Tn the yi'ar fifteen hundred 
and foi1y-oiie they came to tlie bi'oad Mississippi, and tliere de Soto re- 
corded the discovery of what proved to be the largest river in the world. 
He did not survive to enjoy the honor of conveying the news of his 
achievement to S[)ain, l)ut was seized with a fever, the result of enfeebled 
healtli arising tVoin worry and (hsap))ointiuent owr the failure of cher- 
ished exi)ectations in eonneetion with his search for gold, and in a few 
days expired on tlie bank of the great stream. His i-oinpanions, after 



26 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 

the solemn rites of the chureh hud been performed over his remains, 
wrapped liis mantle about him, and taking the body out to the middle 
of the river, smik it in the unsounded depths that it might not fall 
into the hands of the Indians. 

There are few things in the history of the Western Continent more 
impressive or tragie than the melancholy ending of tlie great expedition 
of de Soto. The high expectation and the pride of Spain were centred 
in the undertaking. Cortez in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru had found 
gold and silver in quantity almost fabulous, and for years the Spanish 
ships groaned with the weight of the precious metals which were trans- 
ferred from the ownership of an inoffensive and once happy people to 
the gaping coffers of the Spaniards. De Soto had feasted his eyes on 
the untold wealth of shining metal in Peru, and doubtless acquired 
the notion that other and equally rich races or communities of people 
were to be found all over the vast area of the New World. That others, 
including the rulers of Spain, were possessed of the same idea there can 
be no reasonable ground for doubt. The previous discoveries had daz- 
zled their eyes and intoxicated their senses. Nothing in the shape of 
an expedition to the new country was too rash to propose or too expen- 
sive to undertake. The trappings of wealth and the emblems of grand- 
eur and i)ower whicli characterized the array of de Soto were evidence 
of the gracious favor in which he and his object were held by the Span- 
ish crown. That the prayers of the accompanying priests were at once 
a solace to their misfortunes and an incentive to their hopes there can 
be no question ; nor can it be doubted that, after weary months of 
journeying through seemingly endless wilds, encountering wondering 
natives destitute of the riches which the eager hunters sought, the 
Spaniards Ix'canie irritable, and were only too })roneto perpetrate U})on 
the innocent objects of their disappointment the atrocities which every- 
where mark their progress from Tampa Bay to the eastern shore of the 
great river, where their leader yielded up his life and whose waters 
received his mortal remains. 

The death of de Soto occurred in tlie year fifteen hundred and 
forty-two, or three years after his dei)artui'e from Sjjain. His unfortu- 
nate companions, long since discouraged and no more deluded by the 
expectation of finding gold, thought only of their native land and of 
how they could best get out of the accursed country. They crossed the 
river, well knowing it would be death to all to return by the way they 
came, since they had comiuitted so many acts of crncliy upon tlie na- 
tives, and after wandering for months through trackless forest and en- 
during almost incredible hardships, they finally reached the plains of 



RETURN OF THE SURVIVORS. 



29 



what is now the vast state of Texas. Disheai-teiied, hrokcii in health 
and witli little ho])e of seeing- ever again tlicir homes in Spain, they 
turned in a northeasterly direction and after many weeks of travel 
through swamj) and jungle and unhroken \\ilds, tluy eame once again 
to the shore of the great Mississij)|)i. V\"\{\\ fei'veiit tliaiikfulness and 
renewed hope they set to work, constructed boats, embarked on the 
rapid, unknown river and after many perils reached the coast of Mexico 
and ultimately the West Indias, the pai'ty num])ering about one-half 
the band which had set out from Spain three years before with such 
bright dreams of conquest and glory in connection with their inva- 
sion of the new land in which their leader had found not gold and 
silver, but an unknown grave. 



'^ 




CHAPTER II. 

Enterprise of the P'rexcii ix the Xew Lani>— Expeditions of Yerrazani and 
Cartier — Second Voyaoe of Sebastian Cabot — Discovery of the St. Lawrence 
—France forms the First Colony in the New Country which Proves Tem- 
porary — ^Eassacrk of French Settlkks by the Spaniards — The Act Avenged 
BY the French. 

IX the process of colonization experienced by the new land during the 
period of one hundred and ninety years, or from the time of the 
first voyage of Columbus until the date of the founding of Phila- 
delphia, the methods and the traits of the several enlightened nations of 
the Old World were illustrated with unusual clearness and force. The 
attempts in the earlier instances to form settlements and the failures 
were not confined to any single nationality, — the Spanish, the French, 
the English, the Dutch, and the Swedes alike encountering ol)stacles 
and sutfering misfortunes of a grave and discouraging nature. The 
Spaniards, at the outset, were favored with the distracting and pleasing 
experience of having spread before their eyes and placed within the 
ready grasp of their power the immense treasure of Mexico and Peru, 
and such ideas and plans as they may have previously entertained in 
connection with the forming of colonies and tlie establishing of their 
authority in tlie vast territory that began with the peninsula of Florida, 
were supplanted for a numl^er of years by the occupation, more imme- 
diately profitable, of unearthing and transporting gold and 'silver in 
untold (quantities to tlic shores of Spain. In the glare of the suddenly 
discovered riches and in tlie ielicity of realizations beyond the scope of 
their previous imagination, they lost sight of the importance of continu- 
ing the exi)loration of the new world and of insuring for the Spanish 
crown the great area of land reaching from the Mexican Gulf north- 
ward to the clifls of Maine ; a land which they could, without difficulty, 
have seized and posses.sed, notwithstanding the tact that other nations 
of Europe were at this time sending expeditions to different points on 
the coast of North America. Tlie vSpaniards claimed, it is true, the 
entire region of Florida, on the inviting shore of which Ponce de Leon 
luid lirst laid eyes in tiftccii liundrcd and twelve, seven yeai's before the 
invasion of Mexico by Cortez. The return of the old Spanish chief to 
liis native clime and the lapse of several years had not sufficed to ex- 
tinguish ill his mind tlie vearning to live over again the delightful 

(33) 



34 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 



experience of his first visit to the fragrant land, and he iinally eaiae 
back at the head of a company with the pleasant expectation of found- 
ing a colony. The cruelty of some of his countrymen who had visited the 
coast a short time before his arrival, and seized a number of the natives 
and carried them to San Domingo where they were sold into slavery, had 
changed the disposition of the red men, and, to the surprise and dismay 
of the old Columbian voyager, instead of finding himself and his party 
received with the friendliness and hospitality of former years, they were 
confronted by a band of fierce and determined warriors, and compelled 
to fight for their lives. In tliat battle Ponce de Leon and almost all his 
companions were killed. This disaster had a discouraging ettect on 
the purpose of Spain, and no further effort was made to estal)lish tlie 
power of the crown in the new land until the time of the arrival of de 
Soto at Tampa Bay in fifteen Innidred and thirty-nine. The tragic 
end of this chief and the failure of his expedition had left the Span- 
iards forty-seven years after the first expedition of Columbus without 
a permanent foothold anywhere on the soil of North America. 

In the meantime, while the S})anish ships were employed carrying 
gold and silver from IMexico and Peru to enrich the kingdom of Spain, 
a formidable rival was steadily acquiring a lodgment on the new con- 
tinent. The power and the interests of France demanded a share of 
its vast territory ; and in the year fifteen lunidred and twenty-four 
Verrazani, a Florentine captain, sailed from the country of the French 
witli an expedition consisting of four shi})s and several hundred men, 
with authority from Francis I. to explore in the strange land. Arriv- 
ing off the shore of Florida, he proceeded in a leisurely way to famil- 
iarize himself with the coast of all the country northward. His voyage 
extended to Labi'ador, and was attended by some remarkal)le discover- 
ies. It is recorded that off the coast of what is now New Jersey one of 
his sailors undertook to swim ashore, but upon his close ap})roacli he 
found the l)ank thronged with wondering natives, and, in his endeavor 
to return, he l)ecame exhausted, and was tossed on the beach in a state 
of unconsciousness. The red men revived him, treated him kindly, 
and allowed him to return to his shi}). His account of the people 
aroused the curiosity of W'rrazani, who })resently visited tlie shore in 
person, and was received with friendliness and hospitality by the Indians^ 
with whom he spent some time trafficking and gathering knowledge of 
the country. When he sailed away he rewarded their confidence and 
good offices l)y stealing and carrying off a native child. Ignoring the 
pretensions of the S})aniards who claimed the whole of the new country 
without having seen any portion of its coast beyond Florida, the com- 




.Mi;s. J5KTSY l\Oss, 
wliii (iL'siuiu-il aiiil iiiailf tlu- first American tiasj, in Piiilalclphia, in 1777 



THE VOYAGE OF YERRAZAXI 37 



mandcr of t]u> lirst Freiicli cxpCHlitioii fonnally took j)OSsessioii of the 
entire hind, iioitli of tlie i-coioii discovercMl l»y I'ouce de Leon, in tlie 
name of the sovereign of France. 

The voyage of \''errazani and its results were hailed as a great 
achievement in l^'i-anci", and served to further stimulate the French in 
their desire to contirm in a practical way tlieir claim to the greater 
portion of the distant country. Domestic troubles engrossed the atten- 
tion of the government, however, and prevented the immediate fitting 
out of a second expedition. The tardiness of the Spaniards, whose in- 
terest was wholly absorbed in the riches of Mexico, precluded the possi- 
bility of interference from that cj^uarter with the plans of the French, 
who could, without opposition, have established their power substan- 
tially along the vast stretch of coast from the northern boundary of 
Florida to Labrador. The English, who had sent the C'abots to the 
new land in the year fojurteen hundred and ninety-seven, when they 
discovered Labrador and New Foundland, had shown no disposition 
up to the time of A^errazani," and for a period long subsequent to the 
expedition of the French under that leader, to enforce any claim or to 
extend their powder in the new couiitry. That they had not lost sight 
of the probability of the arrival in the future of an opportunity to assert 
themselves on the AVestern continent, was evident from the fact that 
Sebastian Cabot, in the year fifteen hundred and eighteen, twenty years 
after his first voyage to Labrador and six years prior to the expedition 
of Verrazani, had revisited the shore of the new land, explored tlie 
coast from Labrador to Florida, and with grave formality had claimed 
the entire country for the English crown. •^ 

Here then were the ])ases of a dispute, of a conflict of claims be- 
tween two of the most advanced and progressive nations of Europe, the 
direct consequences of which, in the course of one hundred years, 
proved a})palling and dreadful. From the results of these expeditions of 
Sebastian Cabot and Verrazani, sprang a series of the fiercest and most 
bloody wars known in tlie history of the new world. Long after tlie 
adventurous navigators and the youngest of the voyagers who had sailed 
with theiu had })asse(l away, and the eai'ly achievements and ])ower of 
Spain in the land had bei'U forgotten, their acts on behalf of their re- 
spective sovereigns bore fruits of blood and slaughter, the horror and 
enormity of which cause civilization to shudder at their contemplation 
even to this day. Li that era of l»loodshed, the most repellant of all the 
})eri()ds in American history, the mind may accord to the French the 
])eculiar distinction of having availed themselves of the most barbarous 
methods eoneeivabli' against their foes an<l the ha|)less settlers, the use 



38 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 



of savage and blood-thir.sty tribes of Indians as their ailii's in lighting 
tlieir enemies as well as in inassacreing thousands of innocent and ht'lp- 
less colonists. 

After the voyage of Verrazani a ])eriod of ten years was allowed 
to elai>se before the French undertook to contirni by a second exj^editiou 
their claim to the new land. In tlie year fifteen hundred and thirty- 
four, the government sent out another exploring party under the com- 
mand of Jacques Cartier. This leader possessed some of the character- 
istics of his Florentine predecessor, one of which was an inclination to 
l)ractice bad faith in dealing with the natives. He sailed along the 
coast of the new country until he reached the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 
when he displayed the quality of the explorer and of the daring navi- 
gator alike, by entering the unknown estuary and voyaging onward. 
Ascending the swift-flowing river St. Lawrence he came finally to an 
Indian settlement on the site of the present city of Montreal. The 
spectacle of the wondering natives, dressed in the skins of beasts, living 
in tents, or luits made from the bark of the birch tree, and wearing 
ornaments fashioned from the shells of fishes and the bones of animals, 
was sufficient to attract the attention and arouse the curiosity of the 
French, and they decided to proceed no farther. It was the beginning 
of winter when they arrived at the native town and they resolved to 
remain until spring. The Indians received them hospitably, provided 
for their wants, traded with them and in various ways manifested 
toward them a friendly spirit. The stay of Cartier and his party with 
these friendly peo]>le who were ruled by a Chief and who were well 
supplied with food and means of shelter, during the long and rigor- 
ous months from autumn until spring was productive of an unusual 
amount of valuable information in connection with that portion of the 
country, its resources and its population. It might be supposed that 
on leaving the hospitable tribe, there would be displayed on the part of 
the French some evidence of gratitude. Cartier evinced his sense of the 
oljligation incurred by seizing the Indian Chief and forcibly carrying 
him to France. In tlie meantime, he had with the usual formality, 
laid claim to all the land in the name of his sovereign. 

The supine attitude of the Spaniards, and the absence of opposition 
from the English, emboldened the French in their schemes in the new 
land. They not only regarded themselves as masters of all the terri- 
tory north of l^'lorida, but tliey began to display evidence of a disi)o- 
position to include in their possessions a ])ortion of Florida itself. In 
the course of time they made preparations to form colonies in the 
strange country, and while it was the fate of the French, after the 




'k^^!' 



THE FUKNCn PROTESTANTS. 41 



lapse of a little iiinrc than a century, to be eoiiipelled to reliiKiuisli 
every foot of ground they })ossessed in the new world, they are entitled 
to the credit of having established the first settlement on the soil (jf 
North America, and of having constructed on the strange land the 
earliest stronghold, notwithstanding the fact that the colony was not 
permanent. 

The persecution of French Protestants about the year tifteen hun- 
dred and sixty, produced a state of terror and dread on the part of a 
considerable element of the people and the glowing accounts wdiich the 
voyagers gave of the attractions of the western world, caused the mem- 
bers of the unhappy sect to look with longing eyes toward the shores 
of the land where they could live in peace, and worshi}) in accordance 
with the promptings of their s})iritual nature. 

In the year fifteen hundred and sixty-two a large party of Protest- 
ants, under a commander named Ribault, sailed from France and 
landed on the northern portion of Florida. The place selected for the 
settlement was along the banks of the pleasant river St. John. While 
the colonists occu})ied themselves building houses and taking up land 
in the balmy region Ribault proceeded to the island of Port Royal, off 
the coast of the present State of South Carolina, and constructed a fort 
which he named Port Carolina. Having completed his work and sur- 
veyed it to his satisfaction, he conceived his mission in the new land 
complete and sailed for France. The departure of the leader from the 
shore of the wild country, and with him the power and prestige of the 
mother land, produced a sense of loneliness and desolation on the 
helpless colonists, and, after yearning for their native clime for the 
period of a year, they set to w^ork, constructed a ship and sailed for 
France. The vessel was faulty and the provisions scarce, and but for 
the timely appearance of an English man-of-war it is probable tlie 
unfortunate settlers would not have survived to relate their experience 
on the banks of the St. .John. They were taken on board the English 
vessel in a half-starved condition and in the course of time were landed 
on the soil of France. 

The fiiilure of the first attempt to found a colony on the distant land 
did not discourage the boundless enterprise of the French. With the 
experience of the original party, scarcely a year removed, a second 
company sailed for the new world under the leadership of Laudonnier. 
and, governed by the })revailing notion that the region of the St. 
John was the most desirable situation for a colony, they established 
themselves near the site of the former settlement. The venture proved 
successful, the colonists were reasonablv contented, the soil was fruitful 



42 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 



aiul new accLvs.sion.s were received to their iiunil)er. There was every 
promise of the ultimate prosperity and of the extension of the settle- 
ment when an unexpected occurrence changed the prospect of peace 
and liappiness and produced in its i)lace bloodshed and slaughter and 
the total extinction of the colony. 

The Spaniards, who had neglected for so long a period of time to 
enforce their claim to the right of possession of the new country, 
received information of the existence of the settlement of French 
Protestants in Florida. The knowledge was sufficient to incense a 
race peculiarly jealous of its rights, and imj)atient, in the conscious- 
ness of priority of discovery, of interference, and in the year fifteen 
hundred and sixty-five a fleet was dispatched from Spain under Me- 
lendez with orders to drive the intruders from the land. The expe- 
dition reached a harbor in the Gulf of Mexico, where Melendez, as a 
preliminary step to the assertion of the power of Spain, proceeded to 
build a fortress. When the work was finished the place was designated 
as St. Augustine, and thus was laid the foundation of the present city 
of that name. The Spaniards were now fully aroused to the impor- 
tance of enforcing their former claims which had so long languished, 
and to the necessity of establishing colonies in Florida. With the 
building of the fort at St. Augustine was also formed the nucleus of a 
settlement under the auspices and the power of S})ain. In the mean- 
time the progressive French had a fleet lying ott' the northern coast of 
Florida, south of the French stronghold at Port Royal. The Spanish 
ships had not been long at St. Augustine before the French vessels put 
to sea to attack and if possible destroy the entire expedition. To the 
misfortune of the French a storm arose and their ships were wrecked. 
The exultant Spaniards, more determined than ever to eftectually end 
French encroachments in Florida, made their way through the forest, 
reached the colony of the French Protestants, fell upon the helpless 
settlers and massacred them all with the exception of a few mechanics 
whom they reduced to slavery. 

This atrocious act was amply revenged three years later. In the 
year fifteen hundred and sixty-eight Admiral de (Jourges sailed from 
France with a fleet bound for the coast of Florida. He reached St. 
Augustine, surprised the Spanish garrison, put every Si)aniar(l to death, 
and hanging their bodies on trees placed upon each a })lacard inscribed, 
" I do this not as unto Spaniards, but as unto traitors, robbers and 
murderers." 



CHAPTER III. 

Advent of the English to the New Continent— Eakly P^fforts to Form New 
Colonies and their Failure— The Wane of the Power of the Spaniards- 
Disappearance OF THE Settlers at Roanoke — The First Permanent Colony 
AT Ja:mestown. 

FU()M the .staiid})oiiit of the Anierieaii race, that portion of the 
history of the new world in its long and troublesome period of 
colonization and settlement which marks the advent of the 
English, must ever be regarded as the beginning of a newer and 
brighter epoch in the experience of its slow and uncertain development 
under the guardianship of fretful and contentious nations, the irritant 
clashing of whose claims and the harshness of whose protests are not 
rendered more agreeable by the realization of the fact that the ever- 
recurring controversies are waged by dis]3utants who severally speak 
a strange tongue, and who are possessed of manners and customs in 
many respects widely different from those of the people who gave to 
the Americans their language, and, in the main, their customs, which 
are essentially the same in the lands of the two races in this day. 

With the massacre of the French settlers in Florida, the Spaniards 
disappear as important iigures in the history of the colonization of the 
new world. Forced l)y the aggressiveness of the French and of the 
English to confine themselves to their original claim of Florida, to 
Central and South America and to the southern portion of what is now 
the coast land of the American United States on the Pacific, they sub- 
side from the scene of the approaching investment of universal interest 
and tremendous action in the present English-speaking section of the 
Columbian land ; and as they fade from view to the narrow limits of 
their remote possessions on the soil of North America, the growing 
forms, typical of two of the most })(>werful nations of Europe, loom 
clear and distinct in the prospect, unyielding and menacing in the 
attitude of their ancient rivalry and enmity, the scope of whose infiuence 
and effort on the new continent is destined for the period of nearly two 
centuries to be only limited by the boundaries of tht> land itself. 

The first attempt of the P]nglis]i to form colonies on the strange 
territory were attemlcd not <»nly l)y failure. l>ut resulttMl in di.>^aster to 
the settlers, tlie inclniicholy fate of some of whom constitutes one of 
the most glooniv })am's in tiie historv of the eiforts of the Anglo-Saxon 

(45) 



46 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 

race in tin- diroetion of colonization in the new clime in the closing 
years of the sixteenth century. A })erio(l often years had elapsed from 
the time when De Gourges avenged the murder of the French colonists 
hy the massacre of the Spanish garrison at St. Augustine. The English 
throne was occupied by Elizabeth, and the time had come when the 
nation under this strong-minded (^ueen was ])i-epared to take the initial 
step towards asserting its right to the hnid first beheld l)y Sebastian 
Cabot in the year fifteen hundred and eighteen. Sixty years from the 
date of that voyage, in fifteen hundred and seventy-eight, the Queen 
granted to one of her subjects, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a patent to a 
large })ortion of territory lying along the xVtlantic coast north of Florida. 
An English expedition had visited the land in tliis section of the new 
country, and the accounts which its members gave of the distant shore 
on tlieir return to England a|»pear to have impressed Elizaljeth. Her 
unmarried state suggested a name for her new possessions and the des- 
ignation, A^irginia, was accepted by the nations of Europe during the 
reign of this sovereign as another and more specific title for the greater 
known portion of tlie distant territory. 

Tlie first expedition sent to the new coast l)y Gilbert was wrecked, 
and all those who sailed on the unfortunate voyage perished. This 
disaster produced a feeling of dread and dismay on the English people, 
the passage of ships to and from the strange land being regarded as a 
feat attende<l l)y numerous imaginary dangers ; and for a period of 
seven years no further effort was made to secure settlers for the Western 
World. The interest on the i)art of England in the untold resources 
of its vast area, and the belief that it possessed riches in silver and 
gold, were steadily growing among the subjects of Elizabeth, and the 
successor to Sir Humphrey Gilbert in the business of colonization in 
.\merica ap})eared in the person of Sir Walter Raleigh. He was pos- 
sessed of am])le means, and also of a mind unusually ])rogressive and 
lii)ei'al, and his faith in the future of the new land was strongly attested 
by the perseverance and energy he displayed in the face of successive 
failures to establish settlements on its shore. His first exjiedition was 
sent from England in the year fifteen hundred and eighty-five. Profit- 
ing l)y the disastrous result of the enterprise undertaken by (Jilbert 
sevn years before, the originator of the second attem})t to form a set- 
tlement on the American possessions i)laced a fleet of stout ships under 
the charge of an experienced commander. Sir Richard Grenville. 
The expedition was amply provided with the necessary im})lements for 
farming, and, to the credit of its far-sighted and liberal projector, the 
several hundred colonists were likewise furnished with a generous sup- 



•111' 



r 



P' r^^- ^ ' g S g g ^ ^ % . |.\\\\\ 

|. ■!./'' j-s^ s s s °;i -■. -- -, ^-^T/- 







'■M 




-< 3 -5 ^ 



THE ROANOKE SETTLERS. 49 



ply of food, witli articles of furiiituiv, ami tlu- utensils usually (■iii})loyi'(l 
in housekeeping. 

The destination of the party was the island of Roanoke in Albe- 
marle Sound, off the coast of the present State of North Carolina. They 
reached this place in safety, disembarked with their supplies, and with 
the aid of their coniinauder selected the site for the settlement, and 
proceeded to lay out the ground. Having seen the party estal)lished 
on the new soil in a place where fish and game were abundant, and 
where, under ordinary conditions, In' the exercise of industry and 
patience, the success of the experiment would have been reasonably 
certain, Grenville returned with his ships to England. 

The first settlement of the English on the shore of America bears 
a resemblance in one respect to the mournful experience of the expedi- 
tion of the Spaniards forty-six years before under the leadership of the 
ill-fated de Soto. The delusive hope of finding gold, arising from a 
knowledge of the discoveries in Mexico and Peru, proved to be the 
motive which had prompted a considerable portion of the company to 
sail from England, and the pursuit of agriculture was treated as a 
matter of secondary imjiortance. In the new country, with the source 
of su])ply of the necessaries of life no nearer than England, there could 
be but one result ; and when the unfortunate colonists were almost on 
the point of perishing from starvation, the renowned English com- 
mander. Sir Francis Drake, with a fleet bound from the West Indies 
to England, touched at Roanoke, learned the condition of the settlers, 
and, yielding to their entreaties, took them all on l)oard and sailed for 
the home land. The imaginative mind may enjoy diversion in pictur- 
ing the sensation of sur])rise and of dismay experienced by Sir Richard 
Grenville when he arrived at the site of the original colony a few weeks 
later with ships laden with supplies and found the place wholly aban- 
doned, with the buildings and such evidences of labor as the settlers 
had left, unmolested, yet without any trace that would lead to an ex- 
planation of the mystery of their disa|)})earance. 

In the desire and zeal of the English to effect a settlement in the 
new (Muutrv, they appeal' to have given small consideration to the 
(piestion of the character and disposition of tlie natives. Proceeding 
by methods different from tlie ways of tlie Spaniards, they landed on 
the strange coast without tlie trap})iiigs or tlie menace of war, selected 
the location of their ])ro})osed c-olony. eonstruete(l their rude dwellings, 
entertaining in the meanwhile no ambitious schemes of conquest and 
subjugation. Tliey were colonists, and not warriors. The power and 
the arms of tlu' nation which owned them as subjects were busy assert- 



50 THE STORY OF AS AMKHICAN flTY. 

lUiX its riaiits, cxtciKliiiii,' its sway, iiicctiiii;' cliallcniics and I'cdrcssiiig 
^rit'\-anccs aiiioiii;- its ('(luals, — tlie civilized i-acrs of luwopc, — and to 
the lasting liloi'y of the Anglo-Saxon name, it nia<lc no wanton, uii- 
pi'oNokcd war on tlu^ luicivilizcd red men of the vast country which 
afti'rward came so coni{)let(dy into its possession. Ah'thodically, 
orderly, ))atientl\-. and with (dose ohservance of details, the JMiglish 
I'eared the structure of almost universal dominion, not hy means simi- 
lar to those which destroyed the Aztecs of Mexico and Peru, hut by the 
enlightened and humane scheme of colonization. 

The tolerance of the English nation toward the natives of the new 
land may a])iiear singular in view of the injuries inflicted by the red 
men uj)on the early settlers. When Sir Richard Grenville found the 
colonists at Roanoke had disa})peared, he left a dozen men with ade(iuate 
provisions to look after the interests of tlie settlement and returned to 
England. Two years later, in fifteen hundred and eighty-seven,' an- 
other expedition arrived in Albemarle Sound with a considerable com- 
pany of emigrants, including men with their wives and children. It 
speaks well for the courage and perseverance of this second party of 
colonists that, when they reached the settlement at Roanoke and found 
strewn u])on the ground the bones of the men wlio liad l)een left in 
charge of tlie place by Sir Richard Grenville and nothing of the rude 
fort which had been constructed for their defense save its ruins, they 
determined to remain, although this evidence of the barbarity and the 
inclination of \]\v. natives could not be misunderstood. They })roceeded 
without loss of time to construct houses. In the matter of provisions, 
both for food and for the means of labor, they were supplied on a generous 
basis ; and there were also among them a number of mechanics, espe- 
cially carpenters. In honor of the projector of the enteqirise, it was j)ro- 
jjosed to build a city and call it Raleigh, a j)ur})Ose that was afterward 
effected, but not under the aus])ic(>s of these unfortunate early colonists. 

The ships which carried this second party of emigi-ants to the 
strange shore returned to England and there was no further communi- 
cation b}^ the mother country with the A]l)emarle colony for the })eriod 
of three years. Fn the year fifteen hundi'ed and ninety some English 
vessels ai'rived with lettei's and jirovisions. The melancholy revelation 
of a settlement without the trace of a ibinier inhahitant, and with every 
evidence of ruin and decay, was not calculated to furnish cheerful in- 
telligence to cari'v back to I^ngland, especially when it is considere(l 
that the destroyed colonists ha<l been neglec1e<l by their friends and the 
Englisli nation for a length of time that could not hut severcdy reflect 
on the huiiianitv t»f both. 



THE BIRTH OF VIROIXIA DARK. 53 



This was the end of the effort to form a settlement at Roanoke. 
The news of the fate of the colonists occasioned a sensation and pro- 
duced an unfavorable impression of the new land in luigland. Whether 
they were massacred on the spot or taken to the settlement of tlie In- 
dians and put to death, or whether they constructed a ship and under- 
took to sail for the mother country and perished, are questions that 
must be ever left to conjecture. An interest of a special character is 
involved in their disa])})earance owing to the fact that with them was 
the first English child born on the soil of x\.merica, an infant named 
^^irginia Dare. A pleasant conceit lias found its way into historical 
appendices in connection with the mystery of the taking off of these 
settlers, and the imagination may find solace in the somewhat vague 
tradition that the colonists were adopted by the Hatteras tribe of Indians 
and ultimately became as the natives themselves, a disposition of the 
|)roblem that is more pleasing to the fancy than it is creditable to the 
reason, which might ponder in vain for an explanation of the art that 
would enable the red men to gather into their tribe almost one hundred 
English men, women and children, and within a space of time some- 
what less than a generation, leave no evidence of the coalition of the 
two races to be discovered l)y the enlightened people who afterward 
became numerous in the land. 

Elizabeth, the progressive and enlightened Queen, passed away 
and the problem in England of forming a colony in America that 
would endure, had not been solved. The mystery of the lost settlers 
of Roanoke troubled the minds of the English people for many years. 
There were no Sir Humphrey Gilberts or Sir Walter Raleighs to under- 
take singly any more the hazardous enterprise of founding a settlement 
on the wild and uncertain territory. They too had passed from the 
scene of worldly action, and the whitening bones of the ill-fated portion 
of Sir Richard Grenville's crew, on the distant shore of Albemarle, were 
a vivid reminder of the perils of colonization on the lonely coast. The 
courage and the resources of persons individually were not ecjual to the 
task that seemed to ])e involved in any attemi)t to settle and develop 
the sti'ange country, thougli the fcrtiHty of tlie soil and the excellence 
of the climate, which were known to yield that }ilant of singuhir ]»rop- 
erty and growing adaptation, tobacco, were universally recognized. 
The speculative minds of the English refused to forget the allurements 
of a financial nature which the land possessed, and the risks to human 
life in the home of the red men seemeil to lose something of their mag- 
nitude as the affair of the vanished colonists became more remote. In 
the meanwhile, the power and the greatness of England had been 



54 Till'] STORV OF AX AMHRIOAN CITY. 

steadily ui'owiiiti; : and, keeping ])acc with her universal (levelo])ni('ni 
was the idea ol" the neeessity of jjromoting lier interests in the colonies. 

This sentiment resolved itself finally into action on the i)art of 
certain suhjccts of James 1., and tlie London Company received an 
ample charter from that King, granting it the right to make settlements 
on the coast of North America, between Florida and Nova Scotia. The 
i.ssne ol" the grant in the year sixteen hundred and six, a period of six- 
teen years after the failure of the scheme at Roanoke, was followed di- 
rectly by preparations on an unusual scale for securing colonists. The 
cor]ioration, })rofiting doubtless by the mistakes made in the selection 
of nii'n on the occasion of the several expeditions of Kaleigh, exercised 
circumspection in making up the party of one hundred and five persons 
who sailed on this voyage. The company included, as some of its most 
important members, half a dozen carpenters and masters of other trades, 
provided with the materials and implements for building houses. That 
the corporation had been careful to organize the enterprise in such 
manner as to enable it to retain and exercise control over the prospective 
colony, was shown by the fact that it prepared the draft of a form of 
government, selected the officers wlio were to govern, and sent them, 
fully invested with their authority in London, with the com})any of 
emigrants with whom they were to constitute the new settlement. The 
promptness witli which the party was made u}) and sent on its mission, 
indicates forcibly the practical sense and business-like methods of the 
promoters of the enterprise. The expedition was fitted out and ready to 
sail in December of the year in wdiich the charter had been obtained ; 
and in May of the year following, sixtt^'U hundred and seven, the colo- 
nists arrived off the coast of Virginia. Avoiding that region with which 
was associate<l the unknown fate of the missing settlers, they sailed 
northward until they entered the l)lue waters of the great bay of the 
Chesapeake, and saw for the first time the evidence of the varied forms 
of vegetation in the profusion of budding and blooming trees and 
plants on the low-lying A'irginian shore. Their sensations as they gazed 
on tilt; strange land, contemplative and curious on tlie (piestion of tha 
site of their future home, may )je su})posed to have been i)eculiar and 
not entirely devoid of a sense of dread in connection with the prospect 
of encountering various unknown perils. 

When they left the l)road expanse of the bay and sailed up a large 
and finely shaded river the realization of their near ai)])roach to the 
beginning of the great ex|)eriment of their lives impressed them, and 
brought vividly to their minds the fact of their pros|)eetive position of 
isolation and comparative defencelessness. The destination of tlie 



THE SETTLEMENT OF JAMESTOWN, 57 



leader of the expedition, Captain Newport, was a portion of ^"irginia 
that would afford a navigable stream not too far from the coast, and in 
which the soil would be favorable for the cultivation of tobacco. He 
found what he deemed to be the proper location about thirty miles 
from the bay of the Chesapeake on the bank of the stream described ; 
and upon tlie English sovereign was bestowed the dou])le honor of 
having his name perjictuated in the christening of both the river and 
the site of the future town. 

The history of Jamestown, of the trials of these colonists wlio 
formed the first permanent settlement of the English on the soil of 
North America, with a reference particularly to their encounters with 
the Indians, and to the exploits of Captain John Smith, who finally 
became president of the council which ruled tlie colony, and whose life 
was saved by Pocohantas, the daughter of the native chief, Powhatan, 
embodies the most thrilling of the experiences of early settlers in the 
new land. The settlement grew, and the pursuit of agriculture was 
followed diligently. The great staple article produced, however, was 
tobacco. The growing demand for this article in the markets of Lon- 
don caused Jamestown to be looked upon for a time as the coming 
centre of commerce in the New World, and after a lapse of several 
years English ships, bringing such articles as the domestic economy of 
the colonists required, began to be seen with more frequency in the 
waters of the Chesapeake and of the James. They brought, in a num- 
ber of instances, scores of young women as wives for tlie colonists, the 
expense of whose passage was gladly paid Ijy tlieir future husbands in 
tobacco. In this manner the London Company insured the growth 
and j)ermanency of the settlement. Within the period of fifteen years 
from the landing of the first expedition and the founding of Jamestown, 
the colony had four thousand members. A government, representative 
in its character, had been formed, its members being elected by the 
people, and Jamestown attained to the dignity of the possession of an 
assemblage known as the House of Burgesses. Thus they succeeded, after 
a series of attempts covering a period of twenty-nine 3'ears, in founding 
a permanent settlement in the New World. Thenceforth, for one hun- 
dred and eighty-five years, the history of the country is the histor}- of 
the progress of the English and of the French on its soil, and of the 
wars whicli finally occurred l)etween the two nations, resulting in the 
evacuation of tlu' territory by France, leaving tlie English in undis- 
puted possession of the land witli the exception of the small sections 
embracing Florida, Louisiana, and the possessions of the Spaniards on 
the coast of the Pacific ; the transfer of which ultimately to the United 



58 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 



States of America is u matter of history (•()iH])aratiYcly recent, and 
unaccompanied, lia])pily, by the necessity of any recital involving the 
shedding- of hlood in the slaughter of war. 

Thi> stuiUous mind will note the cliaracter of these first English 
colonists, the circumstances under which they were promi)ted to leave 
their native shore, and will be impressed, in a retrospective view of the 
development of the American race from the standpoint of this day, by 
the fact of the marked difference between the Jamestown settlers, the 
founders, i)ractically, not only of Virginia but of the Southern race in 
the United States, and tlieir ruritan fellow-countrymen, who followed 
them to the new land, but not to the same genial and inviting region 
on its soil. If, in the course of several centuries, the outcropping of 
sharp antagonism between the descendants of the two sets of colonists 
is noticed, the fact should be recalled of the difference in the character 
of the men comi)Osing the first two English settlements in America, 
although natives of the same soil, and of the dissimilarity of motives 
which prompted them to emigrate from the mother land. 




CHAPTER IV. 

TuE High Plack in the History ok Exploration and Discovery on the New Con- 
tinent Occupied by the Italians— Their Intelligence and Exemplary Con- 
duct—The Advent of the Dutch and the Puritans— Penn and the Founding of 
Philadelphia. 

IN the era of early exploration and discovery on the New Continent 
the impartial mind, in a review of important events and large 

revelations transpiring before the wondering gaze of Europe, must 
invariably concede no small share of credit to be due on the part of 
civilization to the Italians. Their performance in the vast field of 
action, the development of which in a measure changed the history 
of the W(H'ld and marked a distinct epoch in the progress of mankind, 
places the sons of the descendants of the Ca3sars in advance of the other 
races of the earth with respect to the original conception and the de- 
monstration of great truths relative to the existence and to the nature 
of the new land. Columbus, the Italian, conceived and carried into 
effect, by means of immense patience and perseverance, an idea so 
original and novel tliat his simple statement of its nature was sufficient 
to arouse a doubt in the matter of his sanity. The trials he experi- 
enced and the steadfast adherence to the truth of his convictions he 
exhibited under circumstances that appeal to the humane and softer 
traits of the nature of man, are not to be contemplated without realiz- 
ing a sense of strong emotion. The story of his discouragements, his 
rebuffs, his disappointments, and of the patience and unwavering faith 
in the justness of his belief and of the cause that cost him so much 
misery of mind and soul, and finally of tlie stu})endous triumph of his 
idea and of his efforts, is without parallel perhaps in the history of 
mankind. If Italy had dune no more than contribute to the welfare 
of the world the genius of this patient and persevering man, its claim 
to the gratitude of the human race, as well as to the place of honor 
among the nations of tlie eartli, would have been com])lete. 

'As if to })resent before the eyes of the woi'ld, howcxcr, an I'xample 
of the spirit and the fibre of the descendants of the ancient liomans, an 
inexorable fate seems to have decreed that those nations of the earth 
which were destined to possess for a period of almost two centuries the 
entire extent of the Western Continent should stand in the relation of 
debtors for their vast ac(iuisition, to the iutelligence, the Ibresiglit, the 



62 THE STORY OF AX A.MEUICAN CITY. 



integrity and llic undaunted daring of the Italians. Directly in the wake 
of Columbus, inspired by the results of his first voyage, arise the figures 
of John and Sebastian Cabot, father and son, Venetians, known to the 
shipj)ing interests of Bristol, England ; and soon their several ships are 
ploughing the seas under a royal commission from Ileniy Vll in 
searcli of unknown lands, islands or provinces. Their undertaking 
involved many risks, grave responsibilities, and a large outlay of money 
none of wdiicli was furnished by the Crown, the commission stipulating 
that the explorers should voyage at their own ex})ense, a condition 
which does more credit to the shrewdness and thrift of the English 
king than it does to his benevolence. The Cabots reached the main- 
land at Labrador in June, fourteen hundred and ninety-seven, one 
year and two montlis before Columbus reached the continent on his 
third expedition, and thus discovered the eastern coast line of the new 
land, which w^as afterward fully explored on a second voyage by 
Sebastian. 

This voyage of the Italians gave to England its claim to the 
greater portion of the continent. Two years after the first discovery by 
the Cabots and six months from the time of the third voyage of 
Columbus, another native of Italy, possessed of much of the same 
studious and j^jhilosophic quality of mind as the latter, created through- 
out Europe a sensation equal to those })roduced by his three fellow- 
countrymen by a voyage of exploration to the new coast which resulted 
in enlightening the world and revealing to civilization one great fact 
in connection wnth the Columbian land. Amidst the confusion and 
the excitement in Europe incident to the discoveries by Columbus and 
by the Cabots there was one mind which remained calm and collected, 
suspended judgment on the question of the identity of tlie strange 
territory, and finally, to satisfy all doubt, undertook a voyage to the 
distant coast. Landing on its southern portion, Amerigo Vespucci 
pursued a careful investigation into the nature and the climate of the 
new shore, and in the course of time am})ly confirmed the belief he 
had entertained that it was in no way connected with India. Having 
thus taken tlie most direct means of settling the (piestion he I'eturned 
to Europe, an<l (•i\-ilization again realized that it owed a dt'bt of grati- 
tude to one of the race of Italy. Verrazani, another Italian, by his 
adventurous voyage from P^lorida to Labrador in tlie interest of the 
King of France, gave to the French, as a result of his expedition, a 
claim wliich enabled them to })0ssess one-halt" the continent foi" a 
period of almost two liundred years. 

In these great exploits of the early voyagers, at a tinui when the 



* 



THE FOUNDING OF NEW AMSTERDAM. 65 



adventurous and wailiku of other nations were seizing the iiativeN of 
the strange land and carrying them oil" to he sold into slavery, or 
driving them hy tire and sword from their possessions tliat they might 
})()ssess their silver and gold, the moral sense of the Italians shines 
ahove reproach. They were not alone explorers, but humane, scientific 
men and philosophers. Their ambition was to eniich mankind by 
great discoveries, and not to despoil a helpless and unenlightened jror- 
tion of it through a vulgar greed for gold. Thus, while the greatest 
of the discoveries of tlie world stand in the Italian name, no act of 
misconduct, no perversion of })Ower, destroy the lustre that distin- 
guishes in the annals of history the high position of this advanced and 
polished race. No greater tribute can be paid to its genius and char- 
acter, i)erhai)s, tlian to say that had the matter of the naming of the 
new world remained for a period in abeyance pending the decision of 
the question of the riglit of Columbus or of ^"espucci to furnish the 
term of its designation, the result, so far as the recognition of the honor 
due to Italy was concerned, would have been inevitably the same. 
Tlie achievements of these two Italians were so original and so tremen- 
dous in their consequences that they shone to the remotest corners of the 
earth without the possibility of Ijeing rivalled, and beyond the })ower 
of future acts and discoveries on the part of persons of any other nation- 
ality producing the result of the eclipse of their glory and their fame. 
Inseparably joined with the name of Columbus, and secure in their 
claim on posterity to lasting honor, are the characters of the liberal 
and enlightened sovereigns of Spain, the progressive Ferdinand and 
the gentle Isabella, who, surrounded by a dense atmosphere of bigotry 
and superstition, possessed the breadth of nature and the force of mind 
sufficient to place them in advance of the rulers of nations as the sup- 
porters of the enterprise of the lonely Italian which brought about the 
most stupendous results known to man since the beginning of creation. 
From the time of the first Columbian voyage and discovery in 
fourteen hundred and ninety-two to the date of tlie tirs': settlement of 
the Fnglisli at Jamestown in tlie year sixteen hundred and seven, the 
interval seems long and the progress of develo}inient on tlie new con- 
tinent tedious. It required a lapse of one hundred and fifteen years 
before the Anglo-Saxon race was ready to devote its attention steadily 
and practically to the l)usiness of colonization on the Western AVorld. 
The date of the founding of Jamestown mai'ks the beginning of a more 
simple and a more easy course in American history. From that period 
the mind may contemplate the steady iiiliux into the new territory, 
and the establishment along the eastern coast of tlu> country from 



6() THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 



Florida to New Fouiulkuul, not alunc ((ftlic Euolisli, but of the J)utcli 
and the Swedes, the latter two i-aces of which have a place of iiu])oi-- 
taiice almost cijunl with tliat of the English in tlie colonization of what 
are now the Eastern Middle States. In the perception of the advan- 
tages offered bv the new countrv to trade and to commerce the Dutch 
were esjx'eially (juick and (■iit('r[)rising. A\"ith tlie exani})le before their 
eyes of the London Company and its colony at Jamestown engaged 
in tlie business of raising tobacco, some thrifty men in Holland organ- 
ized a corporation to be known as the Dutch Company, and sent 
forth to the shores of the new land an experienced Dutch navigator 
nametl Henry Hudson. He saik'<l in a small sliip of only eighty tons 
burthen, and ])enetrating the long and dangerous passage of what is 
now known as the Narrows entered the sheet of water whicli was des- 
tined, in the course of years, to be known as the Bay of New York. 
This event occurred in the year sixteen hundred and nine, or two years 
after the establishment of the colony at Jamestown. Tlie mind may 
follow the results of Hudson's discoveries, the exj)loit which took him 
up the river that afterward received his name, the formal taking pos- 
session of Manhattan Island and the founding of the city of New Am- 
sterdam, and may realize that the English, in their growing colony at 
Jamestown, Avere ra])idly acquiring European neighbors in the strange 
territory. The Dutch came, not as warriors seeking conquest, but as 
merchants and traders. They settled placidly on the island discovered 
by Hudson, and l)egan to do an active business in bartering rum and 
other products of civilization with the Indians, receiving from the 
natives in return tlie furs of animals which commanded a ready sale 
at high prices in Europe ; and their colony grew rapidly in population 
as well as in im])ortance. New Amsterdam was founded in the year 
sixteen hundre(l and thirteen, or six years after the landing at James- 
town. 

The infiux of the third party of colonists marks the beginning of 
the history of the Turitans in tlie AVesteni World. Their arrival at 
Plymouth in the year sixteen hundivd and twenty, tiiirteen years after 
the landing of the first comjiany of English settlers in \"irginia. and 
seven years after the hutch Ibunded New Amsterdam, ])resente(l the 
spectacle of three distinct colonies in North America, each possessed of 
marked peculiarities which, had they all settled in one ])lace, would 
have slidwii them to be anything but homogeneous. ( )f the colonists 
at .laniestown and at Plymouth respectively, ihv i'ormei' wei'e undonl)t- 
edly the most agreeable, the most lil)eral in their ideas, and the most 
tlioroughly identifie(l with the institutions of England. They came to 



Tin: ForXMXii OF I'llILADELPIUA. 69 



the lU'W laml, in si»ine instances, iVom tlic lt>\c of travel ami a<lvciilure, 
ill iimiv cases, however, i'or the lairposc of making' themselves rieh hy 
farniiiig and ^rowing tohaeeo, hut in no instance lor the sake of their 
conscience. Tlie reliuioii of what in time became the P^stablished 
Churcli was sufiicieiit lor their spiritual needs, and they troubled neither 
their own minds nor the ])eace and comfort of their neighbors over new 
doctrines, excess of zeal, or indulgence in fanaticism. They accjuired 
large plantations, experienced delight in the ])ossession of spiriteil 
hor.ses, and laid the foundation of a benign and agreeable social life 
which has en(lure(l to this day. 

The austere class or sect that landed on the dreaiy shca'e of Mas.sa- 
chusetts had not departed from their native soil through the love of 
adventur(\ nor yet at the })romptiiig of any desire for the possession on 
the new land of increased riches. The l\iritans were at war with the 
established form of worshi}) in their own country, and with many of its 
customs and its institutions. They went forth to create a world of tlieir 
own, and were firmly averse to the admission into their company of 
any person or set of persons not of their own belief, or not in sym})athy 
with their extreme interpretation of the divine mission with which they 
were invested on earth. Their tierce intolerance of the (Quakers stands 
in early American history as one of the most marked examples of the 
l)arl)arity of fanaticism to be found in the records of civilization. 
Springing from the same soil and suffering the same forms of persecu- 
tion, the plight of the two sects were strikingly similar ; yet how differ- 
ent the spirit of one in its manifestation toward the other ! After a 
lapse of thirty-six years from the time of the landing at Plymouth, or 
in the year si.xteen hundred and tifty-six, the zealous and determined 
sect enacted a decree ])rohibiting, on the |)art of captains of shi})S, the 
bringing of Quakers to Puritan soil under penalty of tine and imprison- 
ment. For the (Quakers themselves were reserved somewiiat more 
severe forms of punishment. If, by any mischance, an adherent of the 
doctrines of Fox was found in the Massachusetts colony, the victim 
might contemplate the prospect of an experience either at the whi[)piiig 
j)ost, in the House of Correction, or at hard lal)or tbr the beiietit of the 
community, or the possibility of the three penalties combined. These 
intiictions for the sake of the Puritan religic^n may appear mild in 
com})arison with the method prescribed l>y a later decree for insuring 
the colonists against the contaminating intluence of the objectionable 
sect, and any magistrate or ofJicial vested with authority could have 
the satisfaction of exercising one of the functions (.)f his otiice by boring 
a hole in the tongue of a <^>iiaker witli red hot iron if tlie intruder was 



70 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY, 



iiiiliu-ky eiU)Ui»h to lu' apprclu'iide*!. Baj)tists and Ji'suits were like- 
wif^c under the ban of Puritan disjileasure, the wliippino- post l)eing 
reserved for the forniei-, while the latter, in the event of their retni-n 
after having been once (h'iven out, were to be put to deatli. 

Thus the seeond English colony on the Western World evinced its 
disposition to avail itself of the opi)ortunit y which the new land afforded 
to hve and worship according to its doctrines, free from tlie persecution 
of the ffinatics of its native soil. The records of its progress are so re- 
plete with accounts of the apprehension, the trial an<l the l)U]-ning of 
Avitches, the execution of malefactors, the flogging of non-followers of 
the Puritan faith and the punishment of heretics generally, that the 
mind is apt to find itself in a state of Ijewilderment in the effort to dis- 
cover how it manage(l to hnd time in the intervals of the jjrevailing 
task of punishing })ersons of other religious belief and of supposed 
malign influence, in which to pursue the ordinary vocations of life. 

In the meanwhile, the colony at Jamestown and the Puritans at 
Plymouth remained the only two English settlements on the New 
Continent, })ossessed in eacli instance of a marked and distinctive 
peculiarity, until tlie arrival of the Quakers under the colonization 
scheme of Penn and the founding of Philadel})hia. This event oc- 
curred in the year sixteen liundred and eighty-two, sixty-two 3'ears 
after the landing of the Puritans on the Massachusetts coast and 
seventy-five years subsequent to the settlement of the first English 
colony at Jamestown. The persecuted adherents of the faith of Eox 
were not the first Europeans who sailed up the Delaware. The Swedes 
had been on the land Ixjrdering on the shore of the great river for a 
j^eriod of almost fifty years. They had followed the i)ursuit of agri- 
culture, living on friendly terms with the Indians, and were reasonably 
contented and happy. Their houses were originally caves dug in the 
banks of streams or on the sides of the hills; and it is a matter of 
record that they lived in these primitive dwellings in comfort and 
peace, sharing with tlie natives the fruitful land and maintaining 
toward them a spirit of neighl)orly intercourse. In their presence in 
the strange country, so far from their native coast, the Swedes were 
not voluntary colonists. They had been transported from the home 
land for various offences of omission and commission, one of the most 
prevalent being non-ol)servance of the regulation which obliged them 
to enlist in the army. They were not alone in their voyage to the 
new shore, but enjoyed the society of some comjianions in misery in 
the persons of certain nomadic Finns, the grievance of the government 
of Sweden against whom ai)])ears to have hatl its origin in their habit 




MASO^^IC Temple. 



THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 



ti 



ol' living- the lil'e uf .squatters in the hind of their adoption and of de- 
stroying the forests. That the reigning hou.se of Sweden liad in view 
the scheme of acquiring possessions in the New AVorld there can he no 
douht ; and the phin of forced settlements on its soil would pos.siblv 
have given the Swedish .sovereign a claim upon the land settled hv his 
subjects had he been in a })osition to enlbree it, l»ut the Tiiirtv Years' 
war absorbed the attention and the energy of his government, and 
the lonely colonists on the shores of the Delaware were left to take care 
of themselves. Of thrifty, steady habits, these early settlers became 
attaehi'd to the j)laces on the new territory where they e.sta])lished 
tlieir homes, and throughout the period of the great change, which 
came later when the re})resentatives of Penn arrived from England 
with the necessary authorization to make etfective the extensive grant 
of land to the leader of the Quakers, they submitted without protest to 
the new rules and customs introduced by the proprietor and his agents, 
and merged their interests wdth those of the English as smoothlv and 
as completely as if they had been born and reared on the same soil. 





Bkoad Street, north from City ITall. 



CHAITKK \-. 

Tn.; !Staktin(; of J'iiii.adki.i'hia — Its Rapid (Jkowtii and the ('Ar.si: Tiikkeuk — The 
Character ov Pexn and ok His Work— Kaim.y I'.videxce ok the City';- Great- 
ness AS A j\lAXrKACTURIX(^ CENTRE. 

fN the ett'ort to obtain, Avitli a reasonable degree of aeeuraey, an idea 
of till' city Ibundcil by Penn, as it was prior to tlie close of the 
first century of its existence, tlic mind should divest itself of such 
notions and prejudices as it may have acquired in connection with the 
important evi'uts relating to the history of the nation, that I'ender 
l*liiladeli)hia memoral)le an<l place it first on the list of cities of the 
new world where\'er then' is knowledge of the American name. From 
the date of the begiinhng of tlie City on the Delaware, the Western 
Continent was enal)le(l to present to the gaze of the civilized world the 
e.xampk' of a settlement which neither decreased nor languished, but 
which progressed so rapidly, both in population and in connnei'cial 
enterjjrise, as to prove a source of constant wonder to captains of vessels 
and to seamen, who, on the occasion of every return voyage from Europe, 
mar\-eled at its growth and at the increase in numljcr of various usefid 
intert'sts. AMien I'enn landed at New Castle on an autumn day in the 
last week of October in the year sixteen hundred and eighty-two, tlie 
English colony at Jamestown had been in existence seventy-five years. 
The troubles of the Virginia settlement liad been incessant and dis- 
coui'aging, and in the long period mentioned there had been times when 
the fate of the settlers was a matter of grave doubt and tlie duration 
of the colony a serious j>roblem. In the year sixteen hundred and 
twenty-two, fifteen years after the landing on the shore of the James, 
the settlement possessed four thousand persons. Two years later the 
colony had been reduced to eighteen lunidred inhabitants. There were 
new accessions in the year sixteen lunidred and forty -four, when a con- 
sidei'able foive was sent over by Cromwell. The difficulties which had 
hai'as-ed the Virginia settlers however, did not end with this infusion 
of new life and s]iirit into their colony, and as latt' as six years prior 
to the landing of Penn on the shore of the Delaware, and sixtv-niiie 
vears after the founding of the settlement in Virccinia, the Indians, bv 
theii' (K'predations, brought about an uprising of the S(^ttlers, who made 
war against theiu contrary to the wishes of UerkeKy. the (iovernor of 
the Province, the direct result of which was the burniuo- and total de- 



78 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 



.struction of Jamestown. The sccoikI lOiiglisli colony, that of the Turi- 
taiis at I'lynioulli, likewise encountered a harsh and trying experience. 
Their troubles with the natives were numerous and tlieir sufferings from 
the rigors of the climate severe. In the winter of sixteen hundred and 
twent}'-nine, nine years after the landing of the Puritans, two hundred 
settlers died in the colony of Massachusetts Bay, and one lumdred more, 
disheartened at the prospect and having no faith in the future of the 
New England settlement, returned home. Two years later, in sixteen 
hundred and thirty-one, a number of colonists were frozen to death, 
while others died from the lack of proper food and nourishment. 

In marked contrast with the ex})erience of the first two English 
colonies in the New World is the history of the greatest of purely 
American cities. The dej^arture from his native land of the proprietor 
of Pennsylvania and the founder of Philadelphia was followed directly 
by a w^ave of immigration of such force and volume as to somewhat 
embarrass the surveyor and his assistants who were engaged to lay out 
lots on the site of the future town. The person entrusted with this 
work, Captain Thomas Holme, had jireceded Penn about six months, 
having sailed from England under commission as Surveyor General of 
Pennsylvania on the 23d day of April, sixteen hundred and eighty-two. 
In the meantime, the cousin of the proprietor, who had been commis- 
sioned Deputy Governor of Pennsylvania, William Markham, had 
reached the distant land in October of tlie previous year. The mission 
which had taken him to the new shore in advance of the surveyor and 
of the proprietor himself was not without weight and responsibility ; and 
it is not improbable that if an accurate record of the experience of the 
Deputy Governor in the pursuit of his task of buying from the Indians 
and the Swedish settlers the claims held l)y them to various tracts of 
land embraced in the proposed l)oundaries of the new city, could l)e 
given in detail, history would be enriched and much that is now in 
doubt concerning the state of advancement and the extent of the pojuda- 
tion of the Swedes, wdio had been in the land for u])wards of fiftv' years, 
would be rendered more clear. 

The history of Philadelphia and of Pennsylvania, on a strict con- 
struction of the sense of the word, ])ropcrly l»fgiiis with certain actsand 
l)reparations on the part of the })roprietor in tlie Old World. jNlucli 
has been written in the course of two hundred years concerning William 
Penn. A study of his character as it is manifested in his letters and 
in those of his friends and above all in the provisions embodied in his 
" frame of government," the laws devised by him for use in the colony 
to which h - gave his name, assuredly does not present him in the light 



THE CHARACTER OF PENN. 81 

ot" (lie still', t'oniial jxTsoii i'('[in'.st'iitc'(l in various oil paiutiiif^s, cny,rav- 
iiiii's and aiu'it'ut pfiiits. W^r'u lie visited America in the year 
sixteen hundred and eiglity-two he was not over thirty-nine years of 
age. He was of titled stock, his father, Hir William Penn, having 
Keen vice-admiral in the English navy. A handsome young man, 
faultless in form, face rather })ale and features clear cut, witli deep, 
hrown, earnest eyes and dark hair — such is the picture of William 
I'eim at thirty-nine as re|)resented in authentic family portraits. Of 
deep ndigious feeling, he turned from the gayeties t)f a life at Court, 
nuu'h to the chagrin of his father, who had high worldly hopes in con- 
nec-tiou with his career, and became affiliated with the Society of 
Friends. The utmost severity on the part of the stern old admiral, the 
harshness and the petty persecutions of the English bailiffs and Justices 
of the Peace failed to turn the young man from his chosen religion. He 
travelled in Germany, in Switzerland and in other lands in Continental 
Europe, seeking out the persecuted of various forms of belief and 
extending to them comfort and aid. His work for a time was that of 
a missionary. He published tracts and circulated them widely, employ- 
ing his own means to spread the doctrine of the Society of Friends, 
suffering odium and ex}»eriencing many petty annoyances on account 
of his zeal and his earnestness in ui)holding the religion of a sect that 
was despised. 

In spite of the difference in character and in religious belief 
between Penn and the reigning house of England, he was liked by King 
Charles II and by his brother James, Duke of York. His father, the 
admiral, had rendered some service to the King, and after the death of 
the elder Penn it appeared the Government was indt'bted to his estate 
to the amount of about eighteen thousand pounds. The grant of a 
patent for the land embraced in the tcM-ritoiy of PcMuisylvania was tlie 
l)ayment of this obligation. 

The character of Penn subsequent to the grant of this land seems 
to present itself in a new aspect. He bends his energy in the direction 
of gathering into one nuiltitude all the persecuti'd and the wretched of 
whatever nationality and colonizing them on his American possessions. 
In view of the benevolent nature of the man, of his past service to them 
in their hour of disti'ess and of his well-known di.si)osition as the friend of 
the ()[)pressed the peo,ile eagerly read his })ani[)hlets and circulars which 
describe the advantages of the soil and the climate t)f Pennsylvania. 
In his colonization scheme the wai'inth of his natuiv, his enthusiasm 
and also his disposition to be cai'rie*! away somewhat by his sanguine 
temjH'rament are clearly illustrated. The Pennsylvania grant is not the 



82 THE STORY OF AX AMERICAN CITY. 



only land he possesses in America. Ho ])urchased several years Ijcfore 
an interest in West New Jersey, and at the time of the i^ranting of the 
}>ateut by Charles he was one of the proprietors of the section men- 
tioned. The colonization scheme of Penn rings throughout the com- 
munities of the persecuted in whatever country. From quiet C'refeld on 
the banks of the Rhine come some German weavers and craftsmen, 
Quakers and Mennonites, with their families. This was the beginning 
of the movement in the way' of German immigration, which resulted in 
the founding of Germantown. If tlie rapid growth of Philadel})hia 
should seem to ])e a matter of surprise it will not Ije out of place to 
call attention to the number and the variety of the races of Europe 
represented in the j)ersons of the hardy immigrants who rushed to the 
Pennsylvanian shore. First there were the English Quakers, Penn's 
friends and neighbors ; tlie AVelsh Quakers, tlie German Quakers, the 
Irish, the Scotch-Irish, the Swiss, the Belgians, a few French and some 
of the Dutch. They represented many different forms of belief. The 
sect of the Quakers was, of course, predominant. There were also 
Mennonites, Tunkers, Calvinists, Huguenots, Catholics and memljers 
of the English Church. 

A fact in connection with the incoming of the original Philadel- 
})hian stock is worthy of notice. The settlers did not voyage to the new 
shore with any false notions with reference to the land or the climate. 
They knew what to expect in Pennsylvania. The proprietor had 
represented nothing on an extravagant scale. His pamphlets and his 
circulars were tlie honest work of a man inexorably honest and j ust. The 
emigrants came prepared to work and not to consume their time in 
idleness. In a brief period of time after the arrival of the first })arty, 
the town and the country surrounding were well supplied with skilled 
and industrious workmen at almost every useful trade. Wages were 
high and there was plenty of work for all. There were millers, brewers, 
bakers, blacksmiths, butchers, carpenters, shoemakers, tailors, cabinet 
makers, spinners, weavers, wheelwrights, wagon builders, clock makers, 
stone masons and bricklayers ; an immense aggregation of brain and 
muscle, of skill and industry, of energy and of praiseworthy ambition, 
and behind them all the impelling motive to improve and enlarge their 
possessions in land within and about the borders of the city, the location 
and environs of which gave promise from tlu^ first stage of its existence 
of its future greatness among the commercial and social centres of the 
World, hi any considei-ation of tlie cliaracter of tlu^ j)eo2)le wlio thus 
laid the foundation of rhiladel[)hia the fact should be ever borne in 
mind that they were all thrifty and that many of them were compara- 



THE FUTURE PROSPECTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 85 



tivfly we'll oil' ill the oM worM. Tlicy cainc with money, .some ■with a 
considerable amount, othci-s with not .so much and others yet with a 
very Httle. The fact should not be overlooked that no sm;dl nundjcr 
of these first Philadelphians had bought their land from i'cnn in 
Europe, dealing either with the proprietor of INiuisylvania direct or 
with his agents. There was no room for impecunious settlers or for 
sqviatters. The latter class could find no ])lace on the site of the 
coming city. The just but businessdike })roprietor valued that portion 
of his territory which was to be the scene of his future city too highly 
to encourage any class of people as immigrants save those who had 
eitlier the means to buy wdien he sold the land so cheaply, or wdio had 
with their industry and frugal habits the promise of success in obtain- 
ing means which would enable them to possess a home and obtain a 
comfortable livelihood in the new world. 

The wide range of choice which Penn exercised in promoting 
immigration to his colony and the judicious character he displayed in 
selecting the fields of operation speak nuich for the liberality of his 
mind as well as for his knowledge of human nature. He seems to 
have been wholly devoid of narrowness and of |)reju(lice. The brother- 
hood of humanity was strongly illustrated in his acts and in his deal- 
ings with men. It mattered not that persons spoke a language different 
from that of his own land if they were persecuted, devout and lowly, 
seeking to rise from the condition in which the circumstances of the 
times had placed them. He offered asylum to them all, and when the 
current of innnigration started in the several countries of Europe and 
converged at Philadel[)lua, on the western shore of the Delaware, 
resulting in the almost magical rise of that great city, there was the 
first realization of wliat afterwards bi^came a fact of universal recogni- 
tion and of patriotic sentiment, the demonstrable truth that America 
was the home of the ])ersecuted of every clime. The benevolent lieart 
and the generous mind of Penn gathere<l into the colony those who 
were attracted to him on account of his shining (pialities, and, on the 
tlieory that like attracts like, the first American city was built on a 
foundation of benevolence and of lilterality which have characterized 
the li\es of its peo])le through all the genei'ations h'om the date of its 
formation down to this day. 

The histoi-y t>f riiiladelphia in (he early pi'riod nf its existence, 
fi'om whatever standpoint, as well as the correspondence of the day, 
abound with e\iilence of the delight ex[»eriencetl 1)V strangers on first 
beholding the city and its surrounding territory. The care with which 
it was jtlanned, the regard disi)layed for the health and the comfort of 



86 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 



the iuli;i])it:ints and the interest evinced lor the well'ure of citizens t;ene- 
rally, arc among the most creditable and the most praisewortliy of the 
traits of character exhibited by Penn. In his consideration of the 
oiiginal [)lan of the city he sought to |)reserve for each h(juse a spacious 
yard " tliat it may be a green country town whicli will never ])Q burnt 
and always b(,' wholesome." It would |)erhai)S l)e difficult to tind words 
of equal lunnber which could serve to more clearly or more graphically 
illustrate the high and the unselfish ideas of the proprietor of Pennsyl- 
vania in connection with the construction of Philadelphia. Tlie health, 
the comfort and the welfare of the people for all time were uppermost 
in the mind of Penn when the city was projected and the example thus 
set by the proprietor himself has been followed ever since by the 
descendants of the early citizens and contemporaries of the leader of 
the Quaker sect. It is not alone the unrivalled location of the city, with 
its background of gentle, wooded elevations to the north and to the 
west and the broad, stately stream on the east curving slightly south- 
west and then with faint deflection southeast and forming a i)erceptil)le 
bow of the opposite New Jersey shore, but the cliarm of the shaded 
streets, the sj)lendor of its spacious and well-planted squares, the ever 
fresh and cleanly appearance of its houses which attract the attention 
and captivate tlie fancy of visitors, of tourists, and of its own citizens 
who may roam over the world and return with the consciousness that 
its like has not been seen and that its beauty never wanes. 

From the date of the formation of the city almost it l)ecamc great 
and famous. The character of the peoples who came to the Pennsyl- 
vanian shore both at the time and in the wake of the arrival of Penn 
was a guarantee of the success of its future. With the numerous 
skilled and industrious craftsmen belonging to the most thrifty and 
most ingenious of the races of the earth pressing forward, eager to 
work with hands and brain and clear the land and make valuable the 
homesteads they had Ijought, it cannot be surprising that Philadelphia 
easily became, in less than six years from its beginning, the greatest city 
in ^\.merica, as well as the largest centre of manufacture, a position she 
has maintained ever since. To Penn the rapid growth of the town 
seems to have been ever a source of surprise. Pie had not l)een on the 
soil of his new j^ossessions one year and the city had not celebrated its 
first anniversary when the proprietor wrote to the Marquis of Halifax : 
" I nuist without vanity say that I have led the greatest colony into 
America that ever any man did ujton private credit and the most 
prosperous Ix'ginnings that ever were in it are to l^e found among us." 

This statenunit, betokening so much satisfaction on the i)art of the 



MILLS AND .MAXrFACTORIES. 89 



proprietor over the condition of the new city, was made when Phihi- 
(lclj)hia was in the heii^ht of activity as a young, })ushing, hoi)eful 
heginner. In the year in whieli it was lounded, sixteen hun(h'ed and 
eighty-two, which was also the year of Tenn's arrival from England, 
twenty-three ships hringing colonists, chiefly from English jjorts, sailed 
uj) the Delaware ; and the records show that there were more than one 
tlimisand persons landed at the several newly-constructed wharves 
ht'fore the begiiniing of sixteen hundred and eighty-three. The 
colonists arrived so ra})idly that houses could not he found in sufficient 
nund)er to shelter them, and, adapting theuLselves to the condition of 
the time and the spirit of the occasion, they dug caves in the high 
hanks of the Delaware and of the Schuylkill and lived in reasonable 
comfort until they were able to secure or to construct dwellings. 

The beginning and the subseciuent rapid growth of the manufac- 
turing interests of Philadelphia were natural results of the wisdom dis- 
jilayed in the selection of the colonists in the old world. It seems 
almost incredible, in view of the length of time required for the 
establislnnent on a firm basis of the colony at Jamestown and the 
settlement in Massachusetts, that within seven years after the founding 
of Philadelphia a number of mills and factories had been constructed 
and were in operation within what are now the limits of Philadel[)hia. 
The list included a paper mill on tlie Schuylkill, where William 
Bradford and Samuel Carpenter produced the heavy fibrous material 
which attest the skill and honesty of tlie workmanship and material 
employed in some of the carefully preserved old publications to be seen 
in several of the libraries of Philadelphia to-day. There was also a mill 
for the manufacture of woolen goods ; and the disposition of the people 
to encourage such enterprise was shown by the maintenance at the 
connnon exi)en.se of a flock of sheep which was herded on the meadows 
in the town by a regularly em})loyed she|)herd and several assistants. 
Among other industries was a notable list of flouring mills, the city 
antl the surrounding country carrying on a brisk commercial trade in 
this article and in other j)roducts with the West Indies and other islands 
southward. Almost every stream, especially about Germantown and 
Chester, was the scene of an active Inisiness in this line of enterprise ; 
the Swedes bi>ing good farmers ;ind l.ii'ge jirodueers of grain. There 
was likewise a mill which pro(hu-ed a speeies(»f oil used as a lubricant ; 
and in adtlition to these larger means of manufacture there were hun- 
dreds of spinning-wheels in tlie country (.'Ugaged in the inanufaeture of 
stuff from hemp, a work which was universal and not eonlined to any 
single nationalitv. 



90 THE 8T0RY OF AX AMERICAN CITY. 



Witli all tlic activity on tliu jtaii of the people, iiot only in the new 
city hut in the .surrounding villages, it is not surprising that land 
should rapidly advance in value. The rise in the price of ground was 
.something which may be fairly regarded, in this day after an ex])eri- 
ence of nearly two centuries, as phenomenal. Sixteen years from the 
date of the founding of Philadelphia, or in sixteen hundred and 
ninety-eight, tracts were sold for forty dollars per hundred acres, a rise 
in ^■alue in twelve years of more than one thousand per cent. In the 
meanwhile every ship captain who came to the town to trade or to 
bring settlers was an involuntary land promoter. He sailed away 
and told the .story in ports of various countries of the rapid growth of 
Philadel})liia. Captain Richard Norris, in the year sixteen hundred 
and ninety, being newly arrived from England, observes with wonder 
the change in the appearance of the city since he saw it last. So many 
houses had been built in his absence that the ground facing the Dela- 
ware river was enclosed, save the passage ways of streets running at 
right angles with the brick w^alls. " The Bank and River street is so 
filled with houses," he write,s, ''that it makes an inclo.sed street with 
the Front in many })laces which before lay open to the river Delaware." 




CHAPTER XL 

THK Al'I'ltOACH OF TIIK REVOH'TIOX — WaXIXG PoWEK ()!•" TlIK I'KNX.S — TROI'IJLKS WHICH 

ISkset the ForxDEK— offkh of the Soxs to Mediate between America axd 
F.XGi.AXD — The Stamp Act and its Effect — First Move for the Union of the 
Colonies. 

THERE is so much to say about this ucw city tbuuded Ijy Pcuu — 
this magical settlement in the wonderland, as it seems to the 
Europeans. Pemi himself is a busy figure in these early days. 
He Hits hither and thither, now addressing a Quaker meeting at 
Upland or at Southwark and next conferring with the Deputy Gov- 
ernor and liis Council and others whom he has placed in authority. 
There is no rest for this man of high hopes and aspirations. The 
proprietor and universal benefactor of a colony that is rapidly growing 
too lai'ge and too complex even for one possessed of so much executive 
capacity and tact as himself, he finds unlooked-for difficulties arising 
here and there and much to annoy and harass his cheerful spirit. 
Some of the order-loving Quakers, craving the sound sleep which the 
maxim-makers attril)ute to a good con.science, find their peace disturbed 
by certain " disorderly bands of wild Indians," who ap})ear to have 
acquired the habit of coming to town for the sole object of partaking 
of that fiery li(|uid, tlie accompaniment of civilization, which burns 
but (pienches not thirst, the effect of which upon the uncultured savages 
is such as to cause the grievously annoyed wearers of drab to complain 
to the Council and ask that something be done to i)ut a stop to the 
acts ol' " these yt'lling Indians wlio go tlu'ougli the streets and disturb 
tlic I'cst of ]»eo|)le at nigiit."" 

Pciin, tlie proprietor, nuist not oidy respectfully lu'ar this and 
kin<h( (1 com})laints. Imt he must do his best to remedy the grievance. 
Txhind the scene of all the ceremonious trappings of Deputy Governors 
and officials who acknowledge his authority there is the thorny road of 
continuous fault-finding and dissatisfaction, the discord of factions, and 
envy, jealousy ami liiltcrness in his ofiit-ial family, ^\"itll a (.•aim niin<l 
and rcmai'kable ])atience he does his utmost to keep things smootli and 
succcc(ls siiprisingly well con..sidering tlie stulf lie has to deal with. 
For, huiiian natiiic, the same essentially the world over, is not to be 
sup})ose(l Id have been ditferent among Pcim's colonists, the foundei"s 
of Pliiladclpliia and Pennsvlvania, made up as thev were of represinta- 



94 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 



tivcs of the lii'iiit'st clciiu'iits, ill a social ;iii(l religious sense, of the most 
progressive and enhLihtciicd n\' I^uroiieaii nations. 

Besides, Teiiii has liis dwii jirivate troubles, the })rincii)al of wliich 
seems to be a wild son, \\'illiam, the only boy by his first wife, who 
ulliniately crosses the water and comes to his father's city on a sort of 
liohd;iy exeursioii, and, bein,i;' j>elted and feted, gets into the company 
(if a vathei- wild set and distinguishes himself by beating the night 
watch who had cautioned him to b(^ more orderly on the street, for 
which act he is presented at court and indicted for assault by the severe 
and mirth-condenniing Friends, much to the grief of his father, who 
feels that his family deserved better from the hands of the men whom 
he led into the American wilderness. It appears also he has a son-in- 
law, one Aubrey, a mean-spirited man, who marries his daughter 
Letitia, called by her father "Tisli," and wlio becomes angry when he 
finds he cannot sell ra})idly enough the lots near the Delaware front 
which Father-in-law Penn gave to his daughter as lier marriage por- 
tion, and he e(|ualizes matters by charging his wife's father interest on 
the momw unrealized as yet from the sale of the land. That Penn 
should ])ecome angry at the baseness of this son-in-law, as we read, it 
is not strange, nor can it seem surprising that, in view of the troul)Ies 
and the cares which possessed him, aggravated by the bickerings and 
dissensions among the colonists and the officials over them, his mind 
should give way some time before his death in England, in the year 
seventeen hundred and eighteen, ^\^■ll was it for the pious and noble- 
hearted son of tiie old admiral, the al)used and j^ersecuted seceder from 
the Church of England, that his earthly course closed wlien it did, for 
there was the shadow of a black cloud rising over tlie fair prospect of 
Penn and of his native clime. — a cloud destined to sweep over all the 
American land with cyclonic fury, tearing away and bearing in its 
grasj) the rights of kings and of royally chartered j)roprietors alike, 
never to be restored so long as the ringing words of a Dt'claration of 
Iiulejiendence and the bell-tones of a proclamation of lilicrty have 
meaning and force, ^'ct what troultle is entailed Uj)on the descend- 
ants of the generoiisdi called proprietor — the sons by his second wife, 
Hannah Callowhill — who inherit the American possessions! Lonely 
and care-l)urdened Avoman ! She sees the growing feeling of unrest 
among the colonists as the rapidly expanding city of riiiladelphia in- 
creases in size and in commercial importaiun', and she becomes dis- 
pleased at tlie governor, Sir William Keith, whoa}»pears to truckle to the 
po]»ulace and to not display the concern he should for the interests of 
the family of Penn. Furthermore, there has lately come to Philadel- 



WANING POWER OF THE PENNS. 



])liia a mischievous spirit, a young New England printer hailing from 
Boston, one Benjamin Franklin, who seems to have an unusual amount 
of curiosity, and toward whom the governor seems to show ratlier too 
much consideration. This Franklin is a ready writer, and has the 
making of a busy man of affairs. Altogether there is about him a 
tlioi'oughly American spirit, and if ])ersons |)0ssessed of the gift of 
divination look deeply enough tliey may see in him traces of a con- 
tempt for I'oyalty as well as for royally connnissioned proprietors of 
.American colonies. But what is this Franklin's object ? He cultivates 
everybody, makes friends every where, but is not found making any 
])artienlarly extravagant professions of friendshij:* for the Penn family. 
If Hannah Penn distrusts him, it may be her woman's intuition tells 
her that the development of too much freedom of thought and action 
in an American colonv is not alone bad for the authoritv of the kino;, 
but likewise detrimental to the rights of the proprietor of the land Avho 
enjoys his possessions by the grace of the sovereign. And the young 
man Franklin stands typical of American independence and self-reli- 
ance, — a rather unpleasant figure for those who dwell aeross the water 
and desire their authority to be respected in the American wildei'ness. 
All the more unpleasant since the background to his towering figure 
is a raw, uidjroken country not to the liking of this second wife of 
Penn any more than it is to her daughter '' Tish," both of whom im- 
portuned the proprietor to return to his native land after his second 
visit to his possessions in sixteen hundred and ninety-nine, not content 
to s})end their days in the new country. Tlie sojoui'n of nearly two 
years at the manor house, Pennsbury, in Bucks County, proved enough 
for the tenderly reared wife and daughter of England, and with busi- 
ness complications in Europe added to their entreaties the active and 
patient founder of America's greatest colony yielded to their wishes 
and sailed away, nevermore to behold the land of his fondest hopes 
and most cherished ol)jects. 

Never! lieless, the colonists are i)eo])le of honor. Tlu'V will not 
disregard ]>i'oi)rietary rights unless there shall be great jtrovocation. 
With all the growth and expansion of Pliiladeli)hia and the colony of 
Pennsylvania, the interest of the Penns were respected up to the time 
of the l)reaking out of the war of the Revolution. In the year seven- 
teen hundred and sixty-seven Thomas Penn, who, with Piehard, be- 
came ])ro])rietor of IV'unsylvania, speaks of the colony Avishing to buy 
them (tilt, thus making cNideiit tlie fact that up to within a very short 
period of the date when circumstances brouglit about the Declaration 
of Independence the patient colonists still respected the rights of the 



98 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 



Penns. Tliero is sonietliiiig sad in the S2:)ectaclc of the waning influ- 
ence and the diniinisliing figui'cs of these sons of Penn as tliey stand 
on the verge of the Revolution, looking tliis way and tliat, as men 
bewildered, not knowing what to do or whither to turn, but finally 
coming tv their senses sufficiently to face the thoroughly aroused and 
angered American i)opulace, and request in calm, quiet tones to be 
allowed to art as mediators between England and the colonies ! Philadel- 
phia, the city their father had founded, was the seat of the Revolution 
and, as it afterward was called, the Cradle of Liberty. It was truly a 
stiff-necked band that had settled the greatest of American })rovinces. 
The new city in the colony, whose founder had stood so close to the 
king, was the scene of the lirst American Congress ; it was the scene 
of tlie adoi)tion of the Declaration of Independence, of the proclamation 
of the liberty of all the colonies, of the devising and the adoption of 
the national emblem after Britain's ensign had been cast to the winds, 
and linally it was the spot which gave birth to the American Navy 
which did such aggressive work against the sea rovers of the mother 
land at a later period. Well might the Penn boys feel exercised over 
the situation, and natural it was they should wish to mediate. But 
the days for mediation had passed, as well as the days for obedience to 
the voice of a pro}»rietor of Pennsylvania. The last tones of the sons 
of Penn in their plea for peace is drowned by the roar of musketry 
at Lexington and Concord, and their rai:)idly vanishing faces are 
obscured by the dust raised by the foaming steed of Paul Revere in 
his long, mad ride on his mission to arouse the Colonies, from Boston 
to the (Quaker City on the Delaware. 

One more glance at ancient Philadelphia beibre it assumes its 
position of pre-eminence as the seat of a new national government and 
finds its peaceful past obscured by the blinding storm of a fierce 
Revolution. Its rajjid growth and development as a commercial city 
has been mentioned. In com})arison with the otlier two colonies — 
Jamestown in \'irginia and Plymouth in Massachusetts — its jirogress 
seems magical. It })rovided a means for tlu' education of its cliil- 
dren one year after the city was founded, or in sixteen hundred and 
eighty-three ; and jNIaster Enoch Flower, was engaged to teacli the 
young for a small consideration. Later tluTe was started an institu- 
tion destined to V)eeome famous, to which the i)ro})rietor gave tiie use 
of liis nami'. Thus the William Penn Cliarter Sehool, standing as 
living, vital evidence of tiie high estimate [»laeed by the original 
Pliiladelphia Quakers on the training of the minds of their youth, 
and rearing its modern walls of sub-stantial brick alongside the ancient 



TlIK WILLIAM I'KXX CHARTER SCHOOL. 101 

stniclui'c that scrwd its ])ur]i(isc u[>uiilil within a ivoeiit jteriod in tliis 
^vneration, was started inulcT the patronizing eye of tlic founder seven 
yeai's after the settlement of tlie city, or in sixteen hundred and eiglity- 
nine. Ami so fully did it meet the ajijU'ohatioii of iV-nn — who looked 
upon it apparently as a })i'oud sponsor would regard a youtliful name- 
sake — that on the last of the three occasions Avlien lie was called upon 
to charter it, in the years 1701, 1708 and 1711, he graciously set forth 
that, '' I hcrehy will and ordain and Ijy these presents do assign, nomi- 
nate, c-onstitute and a})})oint my trusty and well-heloved friends Samuel 
Carpenter, the elder Edward Shii)pen, Griffith Owen, Thomas Storey, 
Anthony Morris, Richard Hill, Isaac Norris, Samuel Preston, Jonathan 
Dickenson, Nathan Stanbury, Thomas ]\f asters, Nicholas Wain, Caleb 
Pusey, Ivowland Ellis and James Logan to be the present overseers of 
the said school. In A'irginia there was no printing-press until after 
the lapse of a period of more than one hundred years after the settle- 
ment at Jamestown ; in New^ York there was none nntil seventy-three 
years from tlie time of its colonization, and j\Iassachusetts lacked the 
same instrument of civilization for a period of eighteen years from 
the date of the landing at Plymouth Rock, while Philadelphia had 
a press and an intelligent printer in the person of Willir.m Bradford 
within four years of the time of the settlement of the city. In the 
various branches of industry she likewise took the lead of all other 
cities. She had brickyards, cotton mills, paper mills and woolen 
factories before they were known in any other }>ortion of tlu' continent, 
and her enterprise in this respect has continued, enabling lier to still 
keep lier place as the largest manufiicturing city in America. 

Thus for her in<lustries, her enterprise, and her resources. So 
many things are lia|)pening now in tins era of Stamp Acts and ])ro- 
vincial ire and excitement that the <,)uaker City, — " Penn's Exi)eri- 
ment," as it was formerly known in l-^uropi', — is fast losing its idi'utity, 
ami jiromises to lose what is more, its character, at least for loyalty to 
tlie king. What is the meaning of the universal muttering and the 
oneness of thought and the unity of action among men — tradesmen, 
mereliants, ear})enters, and officials? They are doing strange things 
in these univstful days, and tlie king aiul the mother land are men- 
tioned only with defiance and bitterness. The i)eoi)le seem rebellious. 
They are saving up and preparing for some anticipated oideal. They 
are opposed to all things foreign, — that is, eonnuodities, — sinee Ih'itain 
has deereed they shall be taxed. They will buy no tea nor dress goods, 
and all shi}>s attempting to eome into j)ort with cargoes are warned 
that thev had best seek other water.s. The Ilibernia Fire ComiKUiy 



102 THE .STUKV UF A.X A.MEILICAN CUV. 

hiis resoKcti, tV<nii iiidtivrsof ecoiutinv, ''not to cat ;niy laiiil) lliis season 
nor to drink any lort'iL!,!! l)rcr/' a sacriticc tliat could only l)c hrouglit 
about i>y an extraordinary state of things, since it is not aifparent that 
the members of the company were transformed into eitliei- vegetarians 
or total abstainers, l)nt only acted thus '• in order to reduce the present 
high j)rice of nuitton and encourage the breweries of Pennsylvania." 
Franklin, the pi'inter, foreign agent of the C\)lonies in London, had 
eiven bis fellow Americans their cue in his answer duriuii; his examina- 
tion before the House of Commons in connection Avith suntlry coiitro- 
A'ersies over the Stamp Act : '' AVliat used to l)e the ])ride of the Ameri- 
cans?" he was asked ; and the answer came as neatly as if the question 
had l)een previously Jitted to it: "To indulge in the fashions and 
manufactures of Great Britain." "What is now their jtride?" "To 
wear their old clothes over again until they can make new ones." 

A certain John Hughes has been appointed stamp distributor, but 
the jieojtle will not let him touch the ol)noxious things. They have 
burnt him in etligy, and it is not unlikely that if he falls into their 
hands ther(> will be an incineration of a genuine sort. When the 
stamps finally reach New Castle lie is afraid to touch them. A mol) 
surrounils his house, beats muffled di'ums, jeers and taunts him, and 
demands that he resign the hated office. The son of Chief Justice 
Allen leads the band, and thus a<lorns the marauding expedition with 
the semblance of a high judicial sanction. A committee formally re- 
iterates the demand for the stamp agent's resignation ; its mem])ers, 
liobert jMorris, James Tilghman, Chai-les Thompson, Archibald McCall, 
John Cox, A\'illiam Richards, and William Bradford, representing the 
wealth and respectability of rhiladel})hia. Hughes, with a disposition 
to ignore the extent of the dissatisfaction, writes an ex})lanatorv letter 
and naively says the trouble was stirred up by the Presbyterians, — as 
if Quakers, Baptists, Ejiiscopalians and the like were not e(|ually 
affected by the imposition of the stamp duty ! 

The leaven of disaffection works throughout all the c-olonies, and 
at the .-suggestion of James Otis, of ^lassachu.setts, it is proposed to hold 
a Congress of the Colonies in New York on the .second Tuesday of 
Noveml)er in the year .seventeen hundn'(l and sixty-five. In ihe mean- 
while, everywhere tln-oughout the ]>rovinces, merchants and traders 
are signing agreenK'Uts not to impoi-t anything from aln()ad. The 
Philadelphians sign the comitact in October, eonnteimaiiding all orders 
for Briti.sh goods until the Stamj) Act shall have Ixm rt'iteale(l. That 
the agreement may lie carried into effect and not be a mere empty 
thiiiL; a ( 'Minniittee is ap])ointed, niad(^ up of Thomas \\'illing. Sainuel 



THE STAMP ACT AND ITS EFFECT. K).") 

Mitlliii, 'riidiiias M(>iiti;oim'i'y, Sanniel Howell, Saiiiucl Wharton, John 
Ivhra, William Fisher, Joshua Fisher, Peter ChevaHer, Benjamin 
Fuller and Abel James. The relailers Hkewisc take similar action and 
a})point as their Committee John Ord, Francis AVade, Joseph Deaue, 
David Deshler, (feorge Bartram, Andrew Doz, George Schlosser, James 
Hunter, Thomas Paschall, Tliomas West and Valentine Charles. 
Blanks were ])rinted countermanding orders for goods, and with the 
signatures of the dealers attached were forwarded to the respective 
houses with which they dealt in England. 

There is something ]n'actical in this universal non-importation 
agreement. Bf)un(l hy nuitual grievances and mutual interests, the 
colonies are steadily, though imperceptibly, pre})aring for nltimate 
union. The year seventeen hundred and seventy finds the retaliation 
scheme disturbed. New York recedes from all the non-importing 
agreements save those relating to tea, and forthwith the blood of 
Pliiladel[)hia is aroused. Philadelphia's anger finds vent in an indig- 
nation meeting in the State House, at which one Joseph Fox presides, 
and puts resolutions denouncing the action of New York as "sordid 
and Avanton and tending to weaken the Union of the Colonics." Non- 
intercourse with New York is resolved upon and a card is published in 
one of the newspapers with the ironical proposition : " The inliabitants 
of the city of Philadelphia present their compliments to the inhabitants 
of New York and beg they will send their Cld Liberty Pole as they 
can, by their late conduct, have no further nse for it." 

Thus does the city of Penn pay. its respects to its rival, whose 
" Liberty Pole " seems not inappropriate in the possession of the town 
which already has what is destined to be known throughout civiliza- 
tion as the Liberty Bell, a relic to be preserved and revered l)y future 
generations and not, like the aforesaid Liberty Pole, forgotten or mis- 
laid in the hurry and activity of varied mercantile and connnercial 
pursuits, alike di.^tracting and jirofitable, notwithstanding the lack of 
stinudating effect ])ro(luced by the elimination of tea from the house- 
hold luxuries of the New York trader. 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Golden Era of the Prixtek— American Spirit Aroused in Philadelimiia— 
No Compromise aa-ith the Tea Commissioners— Threatening and IxrENDiAUY 
IIand-isills— Hard Fate of the Ship "Polly" and her Captain— A IIkm'ing 
Hand to Boston— iNArouRATiNti the Move for the First Congress. 

E\^ERY\M1ERE in the American Colonies now men are rising 
and asserting the superiority of connnon rights over the decree 
of despotic power. There is niueli speech-making, many 
infiammatory appeals, and the printers were never so husy ; likewise 
there is an abundance of epistolary talent shown, and an unusual 
amount of irony and sarcasm which- might otherwise have lain 
dormant. New York with its Liberty Pole, which emblematic piece 
of wood seems to have lost something of its virtue since the thrifty- 
minded traders of that city broke their pledge in connection with the 
non-importation agreement, is not the only target of the satirical and 
incendiary patriot. He directs his batteries on the tea commissioners, 
on the customs officers and on the captains of merchant ships. There 
are many anonymous handbills, replete with threats of a nature to 
curdle the blood and to make strong men hesitate. A certain Ebenezer 
Richardson, a Boston customs officer, having come to the city of Penn 
to exercise his official functions, was so thoroughly denounced by the 
press and by the ever ready handbills that he found it prudent to fly 
the city to escape the discomfort and ignominy of a coat of tar and. 
feathers. 

Then there was the sensational event in connection with the ship 
"Polly," which lost all the affectionate significance of tlie diminutive 
in its name by reason of the fact that it sailed from London with a load 
of tea and was in due time expected up the Delaware. The " Polly," 
in the long weeks intervening from the time of her leaving port in the 
Thamc>s to the date of her expected arrival at Philadelphia, assumed 
as many hated forms as the fabled monster of old, and in her invisi- 
bility produced the effect of lashing the patriot American into the vi'ry 
white heat of fur}', as well as creating an era of glory for the printer, 
being good for so many different handbills launching forth invectives 
and threats of dire ininishment tliat the press is kei)t busy night and 
day and the skilled operator can have practically his own terms. 
There are posters and circulars address(Ml to various elnssi's of eitiz'-ns. 

(109) 



110 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 



Uiio <liivcU'(l to tradc.siiR'ii, iiurluinies and arti.san.s warns them in self- 
defence to not temporize witli the abhorred East India Company Init to 
meet it on the very thi'cshold : "Be, thcrefori', my dear fellow trades- 
man, })rndent, l)e watchful, be determined to let no motive induce you 
to lavor the accursed scheme. Reject every pro])osal Ijut a repealing 
act; let not tlicir baneful commodity enter your city. Treat every 
aider or abettor with ignominy, contempt, etc., and let your de})ortment 
prove to the world that we will be free indeed.'' 

As the time draws nigh for the detested " Polly " to a})pear in the 
lower Delaware another liandljill is sent broadcast addressed to tlie 
pilots ; coaxing, i)atronizing and threats curiously mingled, and the tone 
altogether impetuous and iiery. " We need not point out," says the 
incendiary effusion, "the step you ought to take if the tea ship falls in 
your way. You cannot be at a loss how to prevent, or, if that cannot 
be done, how to give the merchants of the city timely notice of her 
arrival. But this you may depend on, that whatever pilot brings her 
into the river, such i)iIot sliall l)e marked for his treason and will never 
afterward meet with the least encouragement in his business. Like 
Cain, he will be hung out as a spectacle to all nations, and Ije forever 
recorded as the damned traitorous pilot wlio brought up tlio tea shi}). 
This, liowever, cannot be the case with you. You liave proved 
scourges to evil-doers, to intamous informers and tide-waiters, and we 
may venture to ^iredict that you will give us a faithful and satisfactory 
account of the tea ship if you should meet witli her, and that your 
zeal on this occasion will entitle you t(j any favor it may be in the 
power of the merchants of Philadelphia to confer u})on you." 

A not ver}^ i)leasing prospect for the pilot of the Delaware to con- 
template ! The circular is signed, "The Committee for tarring and 
feathering." There cannot be much doubt tliat the committee means 
business and that it possesses or can easily obtain the ingredients which 
enter into the product of the article with wliieh it is intended to clothe 
the recreant pilot who has the misfoi-tune to fall into its hands. There 
is a postscript to the circular explaining tiiat "This ship witli the tea 
on board is called the ' Polly,' Captain Ayres, and left Gravesend on the 
27tli of September, so that she may be houi'ly ex})ected." Later a 
supplemental bill appears and informs the pilots that tlie " I'olly " is a 
three-decker and incidentally reminds them of the horror of a coat of 
tar and feathers. A tliii'd circular is addrt'ssed to Captain Ayres, 
through the uidiap[)y pilots, and warns him of the danger both to 
himself and his sliip if he persists in coming into port. " You are 
sent out on a diabolical service," it says, " and if you are so foolish and 



AMERICAN SI'IKIT AI{(irsi:i> I X I'll 1 1, A DKM'IIIA. 113 

oljstiiiate as to complete your voyage by bringing your shii) to anchor 
in tliis port you may run such a gauntlet as M'ill induce you in your 
last moments most heartily to curse those wlio have made you the du]>e 
of tlu'ir avarice and ambition. What thiid< you. ( ai)tain, of a luiltcr 
round your neck, ten gallons of liquid tar decanted on your pate, with 
the feathers of a dozen wild geese laid over tliat to enliven your aj)- 
pearance? " 

It does not ai)i)ear that the captain finds himself able to answer 
the proposition so cheerfully submitted to his consideration, but tliere 
is some reason to believe that he does not relish tar, and that if anv 
decanting is to be done he would prefer it should be in a social way in 
the security of his cabin, or in the office or house of some gentleman 
who will observe the amenities of life. The gleeful printer keeps on 
with the work which an impatient public provides for him. A card 
follows the circular to the captain, bearing the "compliments of the 
public to Messrs. James & Drinker," and notifying them that they are 
ex]>ected to withdraw as consignees of tlie tea. It is quickly followed 
by another l»ill addressed to the pilots and assuming to give a careful 
description of the much-talked-about "Polly:" an erroneous impres- 
sion having got abroad concerning her build and appearance. It 
seems she is not a three-deck A'essel, "but an old black sliip without 
any head oi' ornament. The captain is a shoi't. fat fellow, and a little 
ol)stinate withal. So much the worse for him ; for as sure as he rides 
rusty we shall have him keel out and see that he be well rubbed and 
lived and i)aid "" — nautical terms which, doubtless, have a terrible mean- 
ing for the ears of the captain, l)ut which are unfortunately lost on 
laymen. " We know him well," says this fright-breeding circuhir, 
"and have calculated to a gill and a feather how much it will take to 
tit him for an American Exhibition." 

Amidst all the fire and inflammation of human passion and .spirit 
the thoroughly notorious "Polly" arrives at Chester — on a Christmas 
<hiy of all times! how and by whom steered up the river is unknown, 
fortunately for the "traitorous pilot." Gilbert Parclay. one of the con- 
signees who came from London with her, comes up to Philadelphia in 
advance of the vessel, and faces a thoroughly aroused and unmistak- 
ably angereil niultitnde. The Committi'c waits upon him ami ac- 
quaints him with the state of things, learning which he resigns his 
commis-sion, much to the delight of the })atriots, who at once take him 
to their bosoms. The work is not done yet, m^vertlieless, for there is 
the obnoxions '• Polly " at ( 'hester, tt) whicli phu'c tliree Committeemen 
at once repair, while three more hasten to (lloucester Point. There 



114 THE STORY OF AX AMERICAN CITY. 

Captain Ayres, who had left Chester, is luiiled, and ^oing on shore 
in accordance witli an urgent invitation, he finds a, crowd of })eople 
who make a hme along which he may pass, tliougli not without alFord- 
ing him an opportunity to ohserve and learn more about the deter- 
mination of tlie American character than he ever saw or knew before. 
He meets tlie Committee and is informed of the condition of things, 
and wni'n('(l of liis danger. Tlie ''Polly" lies at anchor wliile the cap- 
tain goes up to riiiladeli)]iia with the Committee, and there faces a 
crowd of eight thousand indignant and excited Americans, including 
an unusual number of tlie youth of the town who are in high glee 
over the prospect of lending a hand in the business of tarring and 
feathering. 

But tlie captain does not wish to put them to the trou])le which 
such exertion would involve, and in fact proves to be a very mild and 
comitliant English skipper at this moment, whatever he may be on 
shi})board among his men when the weather is fair and his sense of 
autocratic power is uppermost. If the hated tea ship lying down off 
Gloucester, unconscious of all these wT^eks of angry discussion, antici- 
l)ation and excitement, were endowed with the power of speech, she 
might ])lead surprise at what she would probaljly consider the undue 
importance of the })osition in which she was placed, but being only an 
inanimate thing, "an old l)lack ship," as the hand-bill described her, 
she hat I nothing to do but lie silent in the waters of the Delaware and 
await her fate, which was yet uncertain. First, there must be a meet- 
ing in the State House, a citizens' meeting two days after Christmas, 
or on the 27tli of December, at ten o'clock in the morning, to take ac- 
tion (jii this most exciting episode. When the time came the crowd 
was too large, and the meeting had to adjourn to the State House yard, 
winter though it was. Captain Ayres, a thorough American and a 
])atriot by this time — having lieen with the (V)mmittee long enough 
and ohserved the character of the peo])le sufficicnitly to undergo the 
process of transformation without a niurmui- — attended the meeting and 
made a liei'o of himself by agreeing to comply with all the resolutions 
adopted thereat ; the most important being a provision that he should 
leave town on the day following, going aboard his vessel and making 
the l)est of his way out of "our river and bay." a re([uii'enient which 
the commander of the " Polly " faithfully carrie<l out with the assist- 
ance of a committee of four Philadelphian gentlemen a))pointed to see 
to it that he did not fail t(» comply with the letter and spirit of the 
command. 

. It is now nothing l)ut excitement, uneasy perturbation, comljative- 



A HELPING HAND TO BOSTON. 117 



ness, (Icimiu'iatoiy spoeclies, defiance of royal authority and Mriu re- 
sistance of all measures looking toward the collection hy l']ngland of 
any customs duties. In all the colonies it was the same, the difference 
being only that of location. Orators and pamphleteers found all tliey 
liad to say listened to witli eagerness and read with avidit}'. Tlie 
tl K luglits an< 1 1 he eyes of all turned toward Philadelphia. Paul Revere, 
when he was sent out hy the peo})le of P>oston, after the closing of their port 
by royal order, to secure help was charged to go to the city of Penn. He 
was received with o[)en-hearted hospitality and a meeting was called on 
the day after his arrival in the city tavern. The town was s(^ thoroughly 
American, so tlioroughly patriotic, and so palpably determined to resist 
injustice and o})})ression that the other cities and colonies received in- 
spiration and coui-age from lier example and learned to look to her for 
aid, for counsel and for su})port. Momentous movement this, inagu- 
rated by the meeting in the city tavern ! Charles Thomson, .John 
Dickinson, Joseph Reed and Thomas Mifflin w^ere prominent figures in 
the affair ; the former two proceeding cautiously and with conservatism 
in order to make a favorable impression on the Quakers, wdiose assist- 
ance they needed, both active and passive. Likewise they wanted an 
extra session of the Legislature called and issued a i)etition to the Gov- 
ernor asking him to convene that body, a rec|uest which was at first 
refused but which found the object it sought accomplished two or three 
days later, when the executive convened the law-making chamber os- 
tensibly for the })urpose of taking action on matters connected with 
Indian raids on the border, — a circumstance which proved that the 
Governor, with his large number of conservative Quaker constituents 
who did not believe in extraordinary sessions of the legislative body, 
was something of a diplomat as w^ell as a politician. 

At the meeting in the city tavern tliere was fbniie(l a committee 
on correspondence entrusted with the duty of writing to the difierent 
colonies and espeeially to the people of Boston. When Paul Revere 
left for his Massachusetts home he carried with him not only a grateful 
impression of the hos{)itality and good will of the peoj)le of Philadel- 
phia, but a letter tendering to the citizens of his town their sympathy, 
and their connnendation of the conduct of the descendants of the Puri- 
tans for the fortitude they had shown in the period of their troubles and 
distress. Boston li;i<l risen immensely in the estimation of Philadelphia 
when she threw the Bi'itish tea overboard in the hai'hor, and now that 
she was paying the penalty of her act the city of Penn was ready 
to assume close relations with her and act promptly for the furtherance 
of nnitual interests. 



118 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY, 



Tlic closiiii;- of till' }»()rt of Boston is hnviiiii,- its oftl'ct on all sides 
and tlir American s])irit is thorouglily arousi'd. ddie name of ( Icoi-ge 
ill. lias hinu' since become odious to the colonists who lia\'cu<it into 
the hahit of mentioning their sovereign with contempt not oidy in 
j)rivate conversation l)nt in pubhc gatherings. Has not Patrick Henry 
in the Hituse of l>urgi'sscs in A^irginia set the example of the ])rivilege 
which a suhjcct, cs[)ecially an American subject, may avail himself in 
the way of denouncing the king? Not strange, then, that tradesmen 
and mechanics should also Ije fired by something of the same spirit 
which })rompted the \'irginian orator to speak as he did. Here, fol- 
lowing on the heels of tlie departure of Paul Revere for Boston with 
his consolatory letter, is another meeting of Philadelphians in session 
on this eighteentli day of June, j^ear seventeen hundred and seventy- 
four. The mechanics, who are a large and influential l^ody, especially 
the .Vssociation of Carpenters — having a fine brick hall of their own in 
a good location — have appointed a committee to confer and co-operate 
with the merchants' committee, the mechanics' representatives being 
.John lioss, William Rush, Plunket Fleeson, Edward Duffield, Anthony 
Morris, Jr., Robert Smith, Isaac Howell, Thomas Pryor, David Ritten- 
liousc, A\'illiam Masters and Jacob Barge. Let the reader note care- 
fully the proceedings of this meeting, or rather of the series of meetings 
which began on the lOtli of June. On that day representative Phila- 
delphians have asseml)le(l in Philosophical Hall, the head-quarters of 
the society found e<l ])y Benjamin Franklin fifty years before, on Second 
street, to map out work for the mass meeting. What is this proposition 
which is offere(l and which finds sucli ready acquiescence? — a general 
Congress of all the colonies I What will King George say when he 
hears of this unheard-of and unauthorized proceeding? A general 
Congress of the colonies at this time means mischief. And as if it 
Avere not enough to propose a step so radical, it is suggested that Penn- 
sylvania i)roceed to elect her delegates to the Congress through the 
As.semljly. But the Governor will not call the Assendjly in extra 
sc.s.sion this time, wluM-eupon the members of that body have the 
effrontery to meet without being calle(l 1)y the (Governor, and to I'lect 
the delegates to the projKjsed Congress. The work is assuming such a 
f(jrmidable look that the necessities of the immediate future rise to 
their i)roper ])roportions and present themselves with startling urgency 
ami vividness. The eighteenth day of .lune comes and then, foi-mally 
and well matured, certain resolutions are [)resented and adopted. One 
declares the closing of the port of Boston is unconstitutional, and that 
in view of that and other things it is expedient to convoke a Con- 



INAUGrKATIX(; THE .MoVK F<>R TIIK FIRST CONGRESS. 121 



tineutal Congress. Philadelphia, tlirough its tuwii luecting, is t'uUiUiiig 
its ])romise to Paul Revere and the people of Boston. The Puritan 
('it\- WMUtcd sN'uipathy and (•<!-(. pci'ation in tlic hour of trouhlc, an<l 
now she shall iind her desire' is not in vain. 

Tlie meeting does many praetical things. Having resolved there 
is necessity for a Continental Congress it sets al)out to prepare means 
for calling it. A Connnittee on correspondence for the city and county 
is appointed, forty-three in number, John Dickinson, chairman, with 
instructions to take the sense of the people on the question of the a})- 
]>ointincnt of delegates to the Congress, and further to solicit sul)scrip- 
tions for the relief of the sufferers in Boston. The session closes, and 
the Committee on correspondence begins its work. Its first meeting is 
in Carpenters' Hall, on the fifteenth day of July, Thomas ^\1lling, 
presiding, and Charles Thomson, secretary. There are ringing de- 
clarations of rights in this convention, and much plain speaking. The 
English Parliament is condemned, the united action of the colonies 
and a colonial Congress are recommended, and Pennsylvania is pledged 
to co-operate with the other provinces. Also, the Assemljly is ref[ueste<l 
to appoint deputies to the Congress, a request which that body complies 
with when it meets a few days later, naming as the delegates, Jo.seph 
Galloway, Samuel Rhoads, Thomas Mifflin, Charles Humphreys, 
George Ross and Edward Biddle. Philadelpliia has done its part ; the 
fire has been kindled. The reader shall see how the colonies outside 
Penus}dvania are influenced by its progressive and radical exanq)le. 




CHAPTER VIII. 

Exciting Times in Phii..vih;i.i'iiia— Asskmiu-ini; of tiik First CoNciUKss— Stkun*; 
Impression prouiced ijy the Virginians— Washington among the Delegates- 
News OF THE British Attack at Lexington and Concord and the Resflt- 
Second and Third Sessions ok Conijuess — The Declaration oe Independence. 

IX these tr()ul)l()iis day.s there is for tlie i)atri(»t and th" daring 
violator of tlie iM<;lits (»f the Kin,<;- and of his deputies a certain 
fascination in the consciousness of approachino- events -which nuist 
end all ; which must dispel uncertainty and either destroy utterly or 
secure absolutely the lil)erties of the coloni.sts on the American land. 
Things have gone too far for the ho})e of forgiveness on either side; 
the grievance must he fought out and the question settled once for all. 
The stiff-necked Philadelphians, with their flaming appeals to their 
fellow-citizens, their uncom])roniising, systematic warfare against the 
interests of English importers, and their astounding spirit of indepen- 
dence, not to say defiance, are the worst of the lot, and the King and 
the Parliament both have their eyes on them. It is now the Penn 
boys are uneasy, feeling. ])erha})S, that it was, after all, a great mistake 
of their lamented ancestor to })ut his money and his labor into a place 
wliich only grew to be relxdlious and infamous, and, if the truth were 
known, they are, perhai)s, a little apprehensive lest the King shall 
point to the l)ad fruits of old AVilliam's colonization scheme and vi-sit 
his di.spleasure upon the hea<ls of his progeny. That business with 
the "Polly" was an overt act and is certain to have consequences. 
Captain Ayres will have his story to tell, beyond doubt, the moment 
he touches an English port, and altliough the affair was bad enough it 
is more than probable the abused ski|i])er, sailing under the flag of 
England and yet tossed about like a football at the behest of a rough 
Philadclphiaii mob, will not allow it to lose anything of its enormity in 
his narration of the details. That he will have a multitude of 
svmj)athizcrs it is c(|ually sure, especially among tlie mei'chants and 
dealers in stutfs for export : — save, pei'haps, those who trallic in tar and 
its downy acconqianimeiit. the ilemaml for which in America was so 
})ei'sistently enforced upon the notice of the " Polly's " commander, 
nuicli to his dread ami sec-i'et apprehension. 

.\lso the fjigli-h brewers have a right to be displeased, for there is 
the liihernia f'ire ('oiii])anv resolving to '• buv no more foiviun b(H'r," 

(125) 



126 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 

a (locision tliat donbtless moans miicli in tlio way of a falling-off in the 
t'niisuiiii)ti<)n (if the liquid product. This action of tlu; Plibcniians 
iiiav l>o accepted as an example of sympathetic ami jiractical co-o})cra- 
tidii witli the (>|i|)()nents of tea in their crusade ag'ainst the mild 
IteNcraiie, thouuh it must in fairness be admitted that the members of 
the Ilibernia are not making a sacrifice equal in degree with that of 
the tea-drinkers, for, wliile tliey have resolved to abstain from di-inking 
'' tbi-eign beer," they have also decided to " encourage the brewers of 
Pennsylvania," an act of magnanimity and patriotism which cannot 
be enuilated by the drinkers of tea since Pemi's province is unhappily 
not able to produce the fragrant herb that has lately been so waste- 
fully bestowed u{)on sharks and other marine monsters of the harbor 
of Bo.ston. 

There is so much to do in these exciting times when things are 
moving so ra))idly toward a great culmination. The Quaker city finds 
hei-self the centre, the vortex of Revolutionary passion, the rendezvous 
of patiiots and agitators alike, the seat of colonial revolt, the ver}^ roof- 
tree of the vastly aroused American populace that looks toward her 
hospitable and liberty-loving spirit and fixes its hope for the future on 
the wisdom and courage of her citizens. So, now as the mcmoral)le 
fourth day of September approaches in the year seventeen Iiundred 
and seventy-four, when the first Continental Congress shall meet to 
discuss the state of affairs and take into consideration the question of 
a plan of action, public interest is at fever heat and the eyes of the 
world are turned toward the Amei'ican city on the Delaware. Never 
before in the ninety-two years of its history has the town of Penn been 
calle(l ui)on to meet an emergency like this. It must {)rovide for the 
comfort and eiitei'taimnent of a general Congress, at which will be 
j)re<ent the most distinguished men of every colony, and the manner 
in wliieh the delegates shall be cared for will either add to or detract 
I'roui the credit and fame of the city. 

Philadelpliia, however, meets the task with readiness and uncon- 
cern. There is no evidence of n kick of anything that tends to con- 
ti-ibute to the })leasure and weii-bi'ing of its guests. Now arises on 
the horizon of American consciousness the names whicii later become 
memorable in national history — Ceorge Washington, Peyton Pan- 
d(>ll)h, Richard Henry Lee, John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Jay, 
and many others. The Congress assembles in Carpenter's Hall, the 
State House being occupied by the Provincial Assemlily then in ses- 
sion and therefore not available. Delegates are present from eleven 
colonies out of thirteen. They are (piartered chiefly in the City 



ASSEMBLING OF THE FIRST CONGRESS. 129 

Tavoi'ii, (HI Second f^tivet aljuvc W'aliiul, the lio.-^telric ol' -wliicli riiila- 
(l('l|)liia boasts yince it is considered tlie finest hotel in America. At 
ten o'clock in the morning of the eventful day tlie delegates meet there 
and Avalk to the hall which is to be the scene of their deliberations. 
The citizens are out in force with open, eager eyes and faces betokening 
niicontro]lal)le interest in tlie strangers and in tlie work they have 
bel'ore tliem. Of all the visiting delegates, those who attract most 
attention are the Virginians. Fine, tall men, ot courtly bearing and 
dignified manners, their de])ortment gives an air of grandeur and 
impress! veness to the assemblage which marks it as a distinguished 
affair from the beginning. The importance of the Virginian delega- 
tion, the representatives of the oldest American colony, is at once con- 
ceded in the election of IVyton Randolph as President of the Congress, 
while Charles Thomson, of Pennsylvania, is made Secretary. A much 
interested Philadelphian, writing to a friend, says : " We are so taken 
up with the Congress that we hardly think or talk of anything else. 
Aliout fifty have come to town and more are expected. There are 
some fine fellows come from A^irginia but they are very high. The 
Bostonians are mere milkso|)s to them. AVe understand they are the 
capital men of the colony both in fortune and understanding." 

It is not improbable that the men from Virginia, who are so 
(' very high," are impressed with their importance as delegates from 
the oldest American province, and are prepared to assert their riglits 
in matters of precedence. The selection of one of their number for 
President of the (Congress doubtless satisfies them, as there is no 
evidence of any disatfection on any point from their quarter. 

The Congress organizes with the oiheers mentione<l, l»nt, being- 
new and untiled, does not know itself; sectarianism is rife, and when 
Thomas Cusliing, of Massachusetts, offers a motion to open the session 
with prayer, Delegates Jay and Putledge opi)Ose it, l»eing i)ronipted by 
a desire to not arouse the followers of confiieting Ixdiefs, since the 
assemljlage is made up of (Quakers, Episcopalians, Anabai)tists, Presby- 
terians and Congregationalists. The ready mind and prompt action 
of Samuel Adams, however, saves the Congress from the possibility of 
a chui'ch wrangle in the beginning. He arises, and. with every eye 
fixed upon him, tells the assemblage that he is no ])igot and " can hear 
a ])ray(r from any gentleman of piety and virtue who is a friend to 
his ((innti'v." lie moves that the Rev. Mr. I)uche be invited to 
read })rayers at the opening of tlu^ Congress on the following day. and 
the motion l)eing carried the clerical gentleman ap]>(\irs at the ap- 



230 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 

pointi'd tinio with this c-lcrks and in his {)ontilical robe's and reads 
several j)ra_vi'rs in the rstalihshiMl t'orni. 

Things are getting out of the hands of the niol) into those of a 
reeognized rejirc'sentative l)odv. The Congress fulfills the need and the 
po])ular desire of the tinu's. Tlir pcopU' observe it moves slowly and 
with dignitv an<l thcv are beeoniing aeeustomed to look to it to remedy 
all their wrongs. There is no denunciation of the King in this l)ody. 
Everything is conservative and Parliamentary. The Congress ai'i)eals 
to Great Britain — a last appeal — for justiee to the people of the eolonies. 
It is, nevertheless, not deterred from si)eaking ])lainly and tirndy on 
matters of immeihate importance to American citizens : and a plea 
o-oes forth from it to the residents of all the colonies on behalf of the 
people of Massachusetts, calling for material aid. There is also posi- 
tive action taken against importations, and a permanent association 
is formed in order to insure the observance of a non-importing resolu- 
tion. Likewise a deelaration of rights is adopted : and in addition to 
this a memorial to the i)eople of Great Britain, setting forth the 
wrongs the colonies are sutiering from and aiming to place the 
Americans in the right light before the British })ublie. 

This eonstitutes the work of the Congress and it adjourns. The 
deli<ihte(l lMiiladel})hians will not let the members return home just 
vet, however. The city has had its first experience with a national 
gathering, or what is eipuvalent to one, and begins to feel accustomed 
to the business of taking care of large assemblages. The gentlemen of 
Philadelphia must Ijanquet the Congress in the State House, and the 
Congress courteously accejits. There are five hundred persons present 
ami the allair is pronounced grand beyond anything hitherto known 
in the city. After this ban(piet the Congress must also accept invita- 
tion to a dinner in its honor in the City Tavern. The Congress assents 
to this mark of courtesy likewi.se, and some of the Quaker citizens 
])artici}»ati'. .Tolni .Vdanis. whose eye is ever observant, notices two of 
the sect of Pemi and overhears their remarks when a toast is pro. 
posed in the interest of conciliati<ui : — "May the sword of the })arent 
never be stainecl with the blood of lier children." One of the Friends 
ventures the opinion : "This is not a toast, but a prayer : conu'. let us 
join in it,'' a suggestion which is at once acce})ted. 

The work of the Congress liaving closed for the session the Pemi- 
sylvanian Assembly ap])ro\-es what lias l)een done. Great jtrojects are 
occupying Philadel])hia now in addition to its duties in the way of 
statesmanshii». The Schuylkill river must have a bridge, the activity 
aiid the needs of the city and of the ])eople outside having outgrown. 



NEWS OF THE BRITISH ATTACK AT I>EXTX(iTOX. 133 

tile t'ciTV. Ill s|)ito (if tlic action of llic (onLiToss in jictilicjiiinw- the 
KiiiU' tor a n'(lrrs.s of uricvaiu'cs tilings arc .i;oiiio- torward in a wavtliat 
Would sfciii to show hltlc t'aitii in the considcratfiicss of the royal per- 
soiia^c. ( )ru'anizati()n,s arc hciiiL:,- formed for the cnc(juragement of 
donu'stic manufactures ; gunpowder heing especially an article the pro- 
(hieti(»n of which interests the riiiladelphiaii pnhlic. A society is 
founded early in the year seventeen hnndic(j and seventy-five to 
eiuMiurage tlie manufacture of woolen goods. Invention is Ijeginning 
to show itself in the I'eiinsylvanian eolony. Jana-s Ila/el offers to 
exhil)it to tile Wool Manufacturing Society an apparatus that will 
enahle a girl ten years of age to tend forty-eight spindles and card 
three hundred and sixty pairs of cards. Other inventors appear also 
with machines: and Jolm Hague and("hri.stopher Tulley are fortunate 
eiiougli to get fifteen pounds each as a gift from the Asseml)ly for ])ro- 
ducing machines intended to faciliate the spinning of cotton. Tlie 
Society finds })lenty to do, and finally a factory is secured at Ninth and 
Market streets, where farmers are invited to bring their wool and flax. 
Trade in tlu^ colony is flourishing and scarcely a week passes in which 
some hrancli of manufacture is not established in Philadel})hia. 

From domestic trade and its condition the mind is diverted l>y the 
sound of hoofs travelling rapidly from an easterly direction. A horse- 
man from 'rr(Miton gallops into town. It is five o'clock in the afternoon 
of the -?4tli of A})ril, year seventeen hundred and sevent3'-five. The 
rider has startling news. General Gage marched out of Boston on 
the night of the isth of A])ril with his soldiers and crossing to Gam- 
bridge tireil u[)on and kille<l a number of the militia at Lexington^ 
l)esides destroying ])ro[)erty at Concord. 

Patriotic Philadelphia rises in the morning and takes to the street. 
The news of the killing of the militia in Massachusetts by British 
troo])s fires every heart and drives men fairly into a frenzy. The 
populace moN'es with one accord toward the State House. There can 
be no meeting there because the crowd is too. large. Tlu' Gommittee 
on Gorres])on(lcnce. cliarge<l with the duty of keeping up communica- 
tion with the coldiiies. takes the matter up. The Committee knows 
its business and the moli is satislied. it passes a rt'solutioii brief 
but to the point recommending that all citi/.ens "associate together 
to defend with arms their property, liherty and lives against all attempts 
to dejirix'e them of it."" Tlie resolution serves its |)urpose and meets 
the a})proval of all. l)elil)erate assemblages are all right, l>ut now 
there is something ol" iiore immediate importanci' calling for attention. 
Men must \>o drilled, they must he eipiipped with arm-. The crisis 



];";4 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY, 



is oominc; niid all may sc^c it. 'I'lic (iirollincnt of lucii Ix'uins ;it 
oiicc. The ( "oiiimittcr 111! ( '(ii'iTsj)(iii(l('iicc ciills ii|i(iii cxci'vlxiily who 
has anus to let the tad ]>r known. Two ti-oo|>s of huht horse, two 
c-(»in|>aiiies of rilleinen and two eonipanies of artillery with hra<s and 
iron lield-}»icre.s mu.st he formed immediately. 

Strange transformation wrought l)y time and eircumstanfes ! If 
old William Penn, in sj)irit and consciousness, could look U|»on the 
scene in this hour, with its plato(ins of raw but eager lighters, the clank- 
ing of swords and the click of the mu.sket-locks, what sensations would 
nil the mind of the peacedoving leader of the non-hiilitant sect and 
founder of Philadelphia I Well would it ha\-e been lor him and for 
the interests of his progi'ny if he had exereised some of that strict 
viuilanee which distinguisheil the Puritans in the matter of choosing 
their company, and not allowed his Pennsylvanian colony to ac(piire 
such a cosmopolitan character. But now it is useless to ])onder and 
lament over wdiat cannot l)e remedied. Ninety-three years have 
passed since Penn foun(le(l his colony and surely the three genera- 
tions which have flourislied on this particular ])art of the Amei'ican 
soil lia\-e leariuMl sometliing in the intervening s})ace of time regarding 
the rights of men, es])ecially since the gates of the city have been wdde- 
<ipen and the stranger, whether agitator, philoso})her or jiatriot. from 
wdiatever clime, lias been made welcome. The seed has Ijeen sown by 
many hands, and King George himself lias uiuvittingly furnished the 
stimulating heat necessary to hasten a bounteous cro[) of aggressive 
.\merican patriot.:^. Yet, true to their doctrines, the orderd()\-ing 
(Quakers, with a few exceptions, look with disa})proval on any move 
that savois of disloyalty to the King. Particularly are they disjdeased 
with these new committees and a:-sociations which are spi'inging up so 
nunierouslv ; and cven_ the holdini:,- of this ( 'ontinentai ( 'ono-res.s is a 
thing that should be frow iie(l upon. Those erring members of tlu^ sect 
who ha\'e uniteil with the violent elements of the colon\' ai-e made siil)- 
jects for discipline, and through the medium of their meetings there is 
sent forth ■• solemn testimony against resistance and violenci'."" The 
meeting "for sutferings for Xi'W Jer.sey and I'ennsylvania " issues an 
e]»istle adfli'es^ed to those who have strayed from tlie ]ieace-loving path 
which says in its mild way: '•Some Fi'iends have been cari'ied awav 
by the exciti'iiieiit of the day. They must be ln'ought liack to old- 
time allegiance to the King: they must l>e admoni>lied. The-e eii-ing 
brelhivn must be reclaime(l and shown the eiror of their wa\s, in 
atfection and V)rotherly love. They have joined as.sociations and given 
])ledges and engaged in ])ublic affairs such as lead them to deviate from 







Pknnsyi.vania r.iii.i)iN<i Attiik \Voi:i.!>"s Fai;. (Miiciiiio, 1^!'.!. 
Tdwor llioilflrd iit'ttT lliul of Iml iH'inlciicc II:lll. 



THE SECOND SESSION OF CuXGRESS. l:y, 



our religious priiu'ipk's, which ti'ach us not to (•oulciul lor anvtliiui;- at 
alK uot evru hlicrty. it is a part of tlic !)ivinc |irinci|.ic> we prot'css 
to avoid auytliing k'udiug to disairrctioii to ilic King and the legal 
autlioi'ityol" liis government ; we must not apiH'oach Inm Kni with loval 
and respectful aiMresses." 

And following this avowal of loyalty the testimony was moved 
''l)ul)liely to declare against every usurpation of power and "autiiority 
in opposition to the laws and government and against all combinations, 
insurrections, conspiracies and illegal asscnddies." includiui;- tlie Con- 
gress its(df. 

Strange words to read on tlie eve of a I)('claration o|' Indejuii- 
dciice whicli, going forth, thrills tlie worlil. ^^•t, did not the (Quakers 
come honestly l)y their })rinci[>les of non-resistance V Tlieir patience 
and meekness of spirit had heen proved by the thumb-screws and at 
the whipping-posts of England and did they preserve their belief 
through all their tril>ulations and distress in the land of tlicir origin 
only to surrender it now in a clime where theii- lot was >o nnich 
happier and their condition so much impr(»ve(l? Manv of the non- 
resisting sect who were averse to aiding the i)atriots publiclv did so 
secretly ; and one of them, Samuel Wetlierill, spoke jdain words 
against the ■•testimony" [.ut out by the Friends' meeting, telling his 
brethren in In'ief terms that man was not iidallible and he was not 
ri'ady to attirm his belief that the }iatriots were wrong and tlie I-'riends 
right. 

Non-resistance I What a small, almost iidinitesimal, speck the 
image of the word makos on the lowering, angiy horizon of this vigor- 
ous, growing, aggressive city of Philadeljthia at this time, when the 
news of Lexington and Concoi-d is fresh in the ears ! Beneath the calm 
exterior of the representatives of the }>eoj.le, composing the Connnittee 
on ( 'orresj>ondence and other jiatriot bodies, there is tlie consciousness 
of a growing jtowerhil force generated by the hopes, the exiiectations 
and the angry impatience of the masses, who will have no liackward 
course. Tlieii- faces ai'e set towards lilierty and independence and thi'V 
are readw \villing, eagei' to sacrifice their lixcs for tlie jirinciples in 
which they belicNc, but there nnrst be no temporizing, no betrayal of 
their cause. Woe to the man, or the committee of men, who mav 
attempt to act treacherou-ly ! Tiie srciaid s;.-,-.i(,ii of tin- ('.»ngrt'ss will 
begin on the loth of Maw year se\-ent;'en hundicd and seventv-live, 
and the State Jbuisr i> already being got in trim for the notable evi'ut. 
'I'his ( 'ongi'css is doing Wonders for I 'lnladel|iliia, — ■»■ is rhiladel|ihia 
iloin^' Wonders for the ( 'ongress ".' Ileri' i< the jirincipal citv in America 



l;',S THE STORY OF AX A.M KKK'AX CITY. 

- 

t'niindcil as the seat of the peace-li»viii^. non-resisting sect, and yet what 
an cxaiuiile of aggressiveness ami organi/A'd, armed resistance it is 
setting loi' the cities and towns of the other colonies ! There is reason 
to hchevt' that tlic Congress hkes the atnios]»hci'c of tlie stii'ring, imlc- 
pendcnt city, and that the whitfs of gunpowder wliicli now and then 
touch its nostrils are not at all displeasing l)ut I'ather have the cllect 
of causing some of the ]\hissaehusetts and ^'il■ginian meml)ers to look 
at each other slyly and snap the hils of one eye together furtively, if 
anv of the gi'Utlemen composing such a distinguished hody may be sup- 
posed to ever indulge in acts that hordei- so closely on levity. Surely 
the ('(ingress is feeling its way, slowly, cautiously : doing nothing in 
haste or rashness, but keeping an eye on tiie tem}»er of the people and 
avoiding every issue but the supreme one. Did not the Massachusetts 
Baptists come before it at this second session and demand a cliange in 
the statutes of tliat Puritan stronghold in order tliat they might enjoy 
more liberty and justice, and did not John Hancock, John Adams and 
other mem])ers of the State's delegation in Congress tell them sharjily 
that it was not a Congressional matter ])ut a matter belonging to the 
colony itself — the first instance on record of the assertion of the doc- 
trine of State rigiits in America. 

With all the prejiaration for the Congress and the agitation of 
great questions and the burning excitement of the times in this feverish, 
violent transition period the industrial growth of Philadelphia con- 
tinues witli amazing rapidity. John Elliott and Company stait a 
glas.sworks in Kensington ; William Calverly begins to make iine 
carpets in Loxley's Court ; Richard ^^'ills builds and operates a sperma- 
ceti works at Sixth and Arch streets, and l)rewer Hare is turning 
out excellent American porter. What is more to the point, there 
springs into luMugagooil many manufacturers of saltpetre, and powder 
ami lend ai-e treasured as they have never been before. 

Amidst all the excitement of the approaching session of the Con- 
gress, and the drilling of newly-enrolleil bauds of militia, a work 
which had been going on ever since the receipt of the news tVoui Lex- 
ington and Concord, the city was thrown into a delirium of joy over 
an unexpected, most aus})icious occuri-ence — tlie arrival home of TJen- 
jamin Franklin from his long residence abi'oad as foi'cign agent of the 
Colonies. It was e\euiug on the hfth day of May when the })hiloso- 
pher, statesman, and man of universal affairs reached the city which 
had acquired so nuich that was 1)eneficial and progressive from th<' 
former service (»f this citizen of stu|ieudous executive and business ca- 
pacity and supi'cme mastery of details. Absent from his native shore 



TIIK COMMITTEE OF SAFETY ORGANIZED. I \[ 



f<^i" :i I'lTioil "f ciulitcfii years and lattci-ly l)a< leered, |)cstciv«l and 
l)cdcvi!l('d l)y tlic l-jiulisli Pai-lianicnt ami its ao(.n(.s for liis staunch 
|K)s-iti()ii on the iiucstion of Ainciican atfaii's. and Ins protests iui-ainst 
oppression and injustice, lie had returned at the rit!,ht time, — the man 
for the hour. l''orth\vitli patriotic I Miihidelphia shines witli ilhimina- 
tiou, the name of Fi'anldin is heard on every liand, and the citizens 
o-o faii'ly wilit in tlieir trans[)orts of joy. The ghul words •' Frankhn 
is here I l''i'ankHn is liere ! "' are echoed in every .sti-cet as the jovous 
news Hies frani house to house, ddie Pi'ovincial .Vssemhlv is in session 
and its first act on the morning following FrankliiTs ai-i-i\al is to elect 
him a delegate to the Congress -which will meet in the ensuing M-eek. 

At once (diaos assumes tlie semlilance of order, excitement cools 
and the influence of this wonderful man is felt on evei'V side. Fresh 
from the source of all colonial trouhles the great American knows 
the temper of the enemy, has foreset'U its plans and sets himself to 
work to meet and cope with them. First he organizes the Commit- 
tee of Safety, the members of which are appointed hy the As.<end)lv, 
thus starting with an official authoritative footing; and this body 
quickly supplants the cuml)rous Committee on Correspondence wliich 
was appointed, not by any regular constituted body, but bv citizens as- 
sembled in a town meeting. P^ranklin himself, as President of the 
Committee of Safety, convenes it evi'ry morning at six o'clock in order 
that its meetings may not interfere with the sessions of Congress, of 
which he is a memljer. The Committee of Safety virtualK takes the 
l)lacc of State and city governments. It provides for arming and 
equipi)ing the militia, gets together a collection of craft more or less 
queer and exjuM-imental, and foi'ur< a local navy, regularly officered 
and inanne(l : obstructs the Delaware ami erects a fortification or two, 
and attends to nearly all flic business relating to the public business 
of the city. 

TIk' Congress assembling on the tenth of May finds itself faiidv 
i)ewildered in the presence^ of the excitement and activitv in riiiladi-l- 
phia. John Hancock, the new President, is the recipient of an uncx- 
jiected hon<ir: nearly two thousand niembris o|' the militia, fullv 
armed and e(piipped, turning out to iveei\-e him. the cotnm.and includ- 
ing six guns, two twelve-ponnders. and four ln-ass six-pounders, and a 
troop of light hoi'se. If any doubt on the (luestioii of the seriousness 
of the people of I'hiladelphia. in theii- defi'rmination to I'esist the au- 
thority of the King, has existed in the minds of the Congress, it is now 
dispelled. The Congress itself is non-connnittal for the ])resent. It 
views the militia going thi'ough its mameuvres a nioiuh later and is 



1 [•_) THE Sl'ni;v (iF AX A M Ki; K'AX rv\\ . 



e(>nsi<k'ral)lv iiiipressefl. Yet it is n most fli<j:iiifio(l conservative body 
re]ireseiitiiiti,' the l)rains ol' all tlic (■((luiiics: it knows when to speak 
and when to keej» its ennnscl. Ud'ore it has hccii in session two 
mouths Massachusetts has cut away her allegiance to the l\in^ and 
adopteil a constitution of her own making. New Hani|»sliii'c lollow.s 
her cxamiilc a lew days later. Then the jn'ovinees in the South fall 
into the |irocession of inde|>endent colonies, South ( 'arolina heing the 
third to cut adrift from the govermnental craft of King (Teorge. 

Tlu' ("ongress in the meanwhile has ke})t (juiet, doing nothing 
overt or rash, hut watching the colonies dro}) from the parent stem as 
the skilled physician might watch his patients leap into strength after 
he has administered a pott'ut stimulant. The winter passes and Mas- 
sachusetts, New irampshire and South Carolina stand as the three 
indc[)endent colonies out of tlie thirteen. Congress on the tifteciith day 
of May, seventeen hundred and seventy-six, feels that the time has come 
to givt' an im})etus to the movement for independence. Accordingly on 
this day it a<lopts a resolution recommending that all the colonies fol- 
low the example of the three which have severed their relations with 
King (ieorge. North Carolina, Rhode Island and Virginia instruct 
their delegates in Congress to concur with delegates from other colonies 
in dcchiring independence ami in forming foreign alliance. The Con- 
gress meantime has thrown open the ports of the country to all nations, 
and has opened correspondence with foreign powers. Silas Deane has 
been sent to France, with which nation an alliance may soon be expected. 

(\ilonial independence must l)e hastened. This, at least, is the 
view of N'irginia, wdiicli, in convention at Williamsburg on the four- 
teenth day of May imanimously adoi)ts resolutions, drawn by Edmund 
reiidleton an<l advocated by Patrick Henry, to the effect that "the 
delegates appointed to re])i'esent the colony in the general Congress be 
instructed to [)ropose to that respectaljle body to (l(>clare the united 
colonies free and inde])en(lent States, absolved from all allegiance to 
or <lependent upon tiie('i'own or Parliament oftJreat Pritain. 

The I'esohitions as adopted are carried to rhiladelj)hia to the Con- 
gress by their movt'r, and thus the " I'espectable l)ody "" has something 
for its consi(h'ration of a nature not distasteful. ( )n the seventh day 
of June ^"irg■inia again distinguishes itself when Kic-hai'd ileiiiy Lee 
rises in Congress and oilers a resolution that " these united colonies are 
and of I'ight ought to be, free and indei)endent States ; that they are 
absolveil h'om all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all ])olitical 
comiection between them and Creat Britain is and ought to be totally 
dissolved." 



VIRGINIA DISTINGUISH KS IIKKSKLF IN CONGRE.S.S, 14;" 



Bold words coiiiiii^ iVdiii oiic of the I'c] ircsciitnti vcs oi llic oldest of 
American colonics I \\dicrc now is that loyal sciiliiiiciit which, crvstal- 
lizino- in the days of the great Eli/.ahcth and franu'ht with respect and 
affection, before there was any city of rhiladeljihia oi- any Pennsyl- 
vania, or any William Teim foi' that matter, hestowed njtoii the hrau- 
tifnl region with its varying to})ograp]iy of tidal plains and nplands 
an<l hlue-crowned hills and misty mountain ]»eaks. the euj)honions 
name. \'iiginia I Where is the idea of reverence and Miml alle- 
giance which found s])ontaneons expression when the London ('oni- 
pany's colonists, with their utensils and household effects, their car- 
penters and artisans, sailed up the winding river away from the 
treacherous location of Albemarle and reaching a green, shaded si)ot 
on the Itaid'CS of the stream far from its mouth, named the ri\-ei- aftt'i' 
tlu>ir sovereign and likewise honored him in the designation of their 
town, Jamestown I 

Yet. many things have happened since that memorable day: one 
hundre(l and sixty-nine years have come and gone and the A'irginian 
colony, become great througli hardships and much tribulation, looks 
back already with that reverence evoked by age on the name and 
memories of Jamestown. Perhaj)s those memories stir the emotions of 
this descendant of the early settlers as he pens the memorable words, 
"These united colonies are and of right ought to be free and inde- 
pendent states;" and as lie rises in tlie Congress — j'ct in its inj'ancv 
and feeling its way at every ste]) — in Philadelphia's State House, and 
reads the ins[)iring words small wonder if all other business be forgot- 
ten and the Congress, througli its best and ablest repre.sentatives, 
debates the matter all the following day and then refers it to the Com- 
mittee of the Whole, Penjamin Harrison, of A^irginia, Chairman. 

The Committee (lel)ates it all the following day. Saturday, and 
reports })rogress and asks leave to sit again on Monday. .AFomentous 
f|uestipn ! Can any one foresee the outcome? On the eventful ]\h>nday 
the debate is renewed and continues for liourswhen Pdward Putledge. 
patriot of South ( 'ai'olina. creates consternation in the breasts of some of 
the warmest a<lvocates of the resolution by nio\-ing its |)ostponenient 
for three weeks ! What is the meaning of this attemj)t to delay? 
Xothing insidious or detrimental to the cause of libeily. gentlemen of 
the Congress. Some of tlie colonit's are not yet ready to coiiu' into the 
union of independent States, but their best men are hanl at work at 
home and they soon will stand abreast of Virginia and ^hi.ssachu.<etts 
and New Hanii>.sliire. (iive them a little time, for tlie outcome is .'^ure. 
Accordiii'.dv the resolution <:(>es over until Julv 1st, Init not without a 



146 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 



provision which anticipates its adoption and plca.-cs IJicliaid Henry 
Lee exceedingly — a rcsohition setting fortli that '■ in the iiicanwlnle 
tliat no time he lust in case the Congress agree thereto, that a ( 'uinmittee 
he a])pointed to prepare a di'claration to the effect of the first said 
resolution.'' 

A wise and fit ])r()visi(m and one whicli ^\■ill niakt' tlie resohition 
all tlie more impressive and weighty when ado})ted. The Congress 
next day selects tlie Connnittee, Thomas Jefferson, the youngest of the 
N'irginian delegation, who wields a rea<ly pen and who is looked ui)on 
as one of the very ahlest of the States' representatives; John Adams 
of Massacluisetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman 
of Connecticut and Ko])ert Jl. Livingston of Xew York. Discrimina- 
ting Congress ! In the niake-u}) of this small l)ut important Committee 
the foni- oldest colonies, Virginia, Massachusetts, New York and Penn- 
sylvania are represented — an eminently proper selection, ^"irginia has 
its [)lace of honor throughout all the proceedings attending the birth 
of the great Declaration. Thomas Jefferson is made Chairman of the 
Committee and is delegated by his colleagues to write the document. 
He has three weeks in wdiich to perform the work. The young 
Mrginian goes to his room in the residence of Jacolj Graff, Jr., brick- 
layer, — who, like many other of the mechanics and artisans of Phila- 
delphia, is the owner of the house in wdiicli he dwells, southwest 
corner of Seventh and Market streets, — and locking himself in his 
room })roceeds witli the great woi'k with which he is charged. 

Patriotic ^Vmerica is now in a fever heat of expectation, anticipa- 
tion and wild demonstrativeness. The Congress has placed its hand 
on the lever : it has but to give one determined })ush ar.d a new nation 
Avill b(> called into l)eing on this western continent. Will the Congress 
fail? — will it refuse to move the lever and thus disa])[toint the hopes 
of the ])Cople? Three weeks ])ost])onement ! To the impatient patriot 
it seems like an age. There ai'e so many risks invoh'ed — so many 
little slips in the ])atliway of this cherishe<l l)oon of liberty ami inde- 
})endence. It is too good to succeed. Yet, has not the Congress taken 
a significant step in the right dii'ection? Why appoint a committee 
to j)repare a Declaration to accom})any the resohilion if it does not in- 
tend to ado[)t the resolution itself? This is well, but supposing the 
Congress is mistaken on the question of its strength in favor of the 
resolution! It maybe defeated after all and then all tlie hopes and 
expectations in connection with liheity and independence are as 
withered grass on the drouth-stricken heM. 

Thus do tln' hopes and fears of the patriots alternate. In the 



DUTIKS OF THE fOMMTTTEE OP SAFETY. 149 



nicaiiwliilc the evei'-watdiliil ("oinmittcH^ of HaCcty, with tlic iiidi'iatig- 
ahle Frankhn at its hcail, coutiiitU'S its (hitics whieli arc anything Init 
hght ; contiiHics to meet at six o'clock in the morning and receive re- 
ports and ai»iM)rti(in its work among tlie varion.s 8ul)-committees. Of 
these the ('ommittce on Iiis[)ection is one of tlie most important. It 
has nnicli liusincss at the wharves and warehouses ; keeps it eyes wide 
open ti) note wliether any of the merchants are receiving contraljand 
goods, in violation of the non-importation agreement. Now and then 
it ferrets out a consignment of wines, oi- a package of the hated tea, 
either smnggle<l in from a vessel direct or steahhily conveyed from 
that thrifty traihng c-eiitre, New York ; or it may be that molasses, 
coftci', eh(H'()k-ite, sugar, salt and }ie[)}»er have l)een covertly hmded 
and lodgeil in the eellai' of one or more of the enter[)rising Philadel- 
phian merchants. If so, and the Committee on rns[)ection discovers 
the illicit business, woo to the violator of the poi)tdar law, or rather, 
agreement, which, supported by the overwhelming sentiment of the 
people who sustain the Committee of Safety, has all the binding 
force of law duly enacted. Once detected the merchant shall not 
only lose his goods, which must be confiscated and sold at auction, 
but he loses his character as well, and will be })ublished broadcast 
as an enemy to the country, and one who is to l)e avoided by every 
patriot. 

The ('ommittce of Safety finds plenty to do likewise in another di- 
rection, ^fr. So-and-so, whose Tory sympathies are well known, has 
been s[)eaking slightingly of tlie Congress. The Committee at once ap- 
prehends him, demands a retraction, and shows so mucii sternness 
about it that the ollender finds it expedient to humbly take l»ack the 
objectionable words and ''to beg the pardon of Congress." One unpa- 
triotic citizen, a butcher, finds it best to publicly avow that his disre- 
spectful Words about Congress were prompted b\' "the most contracted 
notions of the i>ritisli constitution and the rights of human natiu'e.'"" 
He asks }>ardon of Congress and will not rellecl upon it again. An- 
other unsymjtathizing and talkative person confesses he was nnicli to 
blame for having spoken slightingly of the cause of liljerty and inde- 
pendence, and he promises to do better henceforth. Still another who 
has vilitieil ("ongrc^ss is held U]) as a spectach^ before the populace and 
compelled \n beg pardon of the respc'ctable and iuiportant bodv in ses- 
sion at the State House, and to promise to not again be guiltv of the 
same otl'ence. 

Thes(> nndtifarious duties of tlu' Connnittee of Safety assurcdlv 
keep it l>usy and inspii'e a wholesome dreail of its power in the minds 



i:,() TIIK STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 



of the iion-synip;itlii/crs. TIil- ('oiiniiittcc likewise keeps act ively at 
Work enrolling new reeruits in tlie militia, t'oniiin.i;- a local navy, fixing 
the j)riee of tile neces^^ai'les of life in order tliat nioiio]iolists may not 
take advantage of tlie time and the situation and exact exorhitant 
rates from the jieople for supplies. With such an alert, vigilant and 
capable l)oily looking alter allairs in the city and so zealously protect- 
ing its good name the ( 'oiigress can occupy itself Avith matters of 
more weighty, moiv general and more lar-reacdiing etlect and impor- 
tance. 

Through all this seething, foaming and raging of the vast aggre- 
gate of excited humau passion the (Jongre.ss nun'es i)lacidly to the event- 
ful datt', the lirsl day of July. A vast crowd of citizens of all classes 
is as.semhled ahimt the State House in the morning, as the meml)ers 
slowly wend their way to tlie place of meeting. There is something 
■elei-trical, jnagnetii-, contagious in the expectation and excitement of the 
great throng. The memljers see it and feel it. The Congress liaving 
come to order the icsolution of Richard ILenry Lee " respecting inde- 
pendence " is reported l)y Benjamin Harrison, C'liairman of the ( oni- 
mittee of the Whole. South Carolina asks tluit it be laid over until 
the following day. nnicli to the thsappointment and chagrin of the pa- 
triot nniltituile outside. The Carolinian State is all right, nevertheless ; 
only wishes to have the thing more secure by giving her own people 
<lown on the coa.st a chance to be heard "by Avord of mouth," as it 
"Were, in favor of independence before the notable wor<ls are spoken and 
uccei»teil as its fiat by ( 'ongre.ss. 

This second of .lidy witnesses no abatement of the throng 
which hems in State House and Congress. The resolution is taken up 
and ailopted. The bu-iness is not yet complete, however. There is 
the Declaration which must go forth to the world with it, oi' as nearly 
after it as cii-cumstances will })ermit, and the young ^"irginian with the 
ready [»en and the ([uick comprehension of ])olitical science, Thomas 
Jefferson, is ready to re[>ort it IVom the ( 'onnnittee of which he is 
Chairman. I'^or three days the notable ])a])er is discussed in ('onnnit- 
lee of the Whole. .Iidy iM, 8d aud 4th. ..'olin i)ickinsoii speaks 
against it. The Heclaration will not add a single soldier to the patriot 
cau.^e. John Adams rises, and with all eyes fixed njxm the massive 
foi'ehead and the th<jughtful countenance, confesses that as he speaks 
he " feels himself oppressed by the weight of the subject."' The debate 
is l)etwecn Adams and Dickinson, and the result is lbreshadowe(l when 
tlie colleague of the latter, James Wilson. I'ises and says he will vote 
for the Declaration of hideueiidence. 



THE DECLAIIATIO.N nl' l.NDEPENDEXCE. 



lo3 



I'iic i'ciiiaiu<KT 111' the story is ([uirkl\' told. Tlic Dcclai'atioii 
eoincs t<» a vote, is a(l(>j)tt'<l and fort 1 1 with (lie old jaiiitnr [irocecMls to 
tlic licH'iy tower, with troniiiluus, eager hands seizes the -ii|)|il(' rope 
\vhich s.'ciiis ill this siiprcine nioineiit to l)e endowed with hoiiii(hnu' 
htr and at once [)eal forth the tones of the State IFonse l»cll in 
ohc(Henc-e to the Word to '• jtroclaiin Hhcrty throiigliout all tin' 
land," while, niin!j,le(l with the air-laden screams of the joyous metal, 
rise the shouts and cheers of the patriot thousands, strugglina,' thei'e 
in one hlaek, dense mass willi hats and haiidkerehiefs poised in the 
air ai:d with the genitis of t\x'edom encircling their heads, making 
their wild gestienlations and jovuus nlav of eountenanee a sieht at 
onee l)eantiful and suhhnu' in the inspiring hour, never to be forgotten 
nor uncomniemorated so long as the Anieriean name is known in 
human annals and the word Liberty has meaning in this earthlv 
destiny amonu' the races of men. 




CHAPTER IX. 

LowEiUNG (IK Wak Ci.oriis Ai.i. ()Vi;i: thk (Oloniks— Thh IJiutish txder Howk 
Occupy Philadklimua— Dki-aimi inc <>v niic Congress for Lancaster — Washing- 
ton AND Yali.ey Forge— I'liii.ADKi.riiiA's Sky again Brightens— Its Great 
Industhial Gkowth Foreshadowed. 

RADICAL and ivvolutionary act, Philadelphia! Of all Ijold 
things just now occurring on old Earth's crust, or having 
occurred and left some recollection thereof in the minds of 
men this Declaration is ahout the boldest, and will be attended l)y the 
most momentous and far-reaching effects. Among American cities in 
this eventful year of seventeen hundred and seventy-six this city of 
Penn stands pre-eminent, having out-Americancd them all and brought 
on a pretty crisis, thanks to her exceptional foresight two years ago 
when she suggested tiiis idea r)f a Congress of the Colonies and having 
seen it carried out thereafter took tlie Congress under her wings and 
sternly suffered no one to speak disrespectfully of the distinguished 
body, but compelled all within the range of her influence to conform 
with its decrees and recommendations. 

Here, then, is tlio Congress, full-grown, and these restless, dissatis- 
fied and revolutionary Philadelphians may contemplate its latest work. 
the logical fruit of tJicir work. They wanted independence and now 
they have it, by formal, heroic, official proclamation of that able assem- 
blage which they gathei-ed together from all the colonies, beneath their 
own roof-tree, and wliich seems to like the location so well it has got 
into the habit of ()ccu})ying their Slate House regularly every year. 
Xot only do they have independence l)Ut they have a terrific war on 
their hands and on those of their fellow-colonists, their antagonist 
being a big fighting nation wliich has won a proud record in many 
contests both on land and sea and which displays a formidable band 
about its girth labelled "Conqueror." Tlie Congress has been egged 
on to do this astounding thing and now Philadel})hia, Avhich is in 
reality at the bottom of it all, must stand by it and see that it is \n-o- 
tected. Slie is the staundi jiillar against which the Congress nuist 
lean, and if she topples all goes over, in which event it would be 
better if the Congress had never existed. 

The Congress finds, however, it is resting on a sub.stantial suppoi-t. 
Philadelphia, havinu" shouted itself hoarse over the Declaration and 

(i:,7) 



158 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 



matle its jov Iicinl to tlic fartlu'st coniors of tlio earth, even King 
Cioorge's ears not bciii^' sparcil, comes back to urgent business witli a 
].ronii)tness and coolness that nuist astonisli tlie Congress itself. Only 
foni- (lays after the signing and i)runuilgaLing of the Declaration 
Philadelphia and Penn-^yhania are holding an election in the State 
House for the |air|tose <if choosing delegates to a convention to foi'niu- 
late a State Constitution. 

A State Constitution ! Must the restless patriots of the ]>rovince 
of Peini display such unseianly liaste in donning the gaii) of Statehood 
— indei)endent Statehood — that the objectionable costume shall clothe 
theii- dcliant figures before the old colonial garments are decently put 
out of sight? Well might the King and the Parliament feel an addi- 
tional tlnill of auger at tlie spectacle of this impetuous rush to clear 
away all the vestiges of royal authority. I>ad as it is, however, the Ayorst 
has not yet developed ; for, when the convention meets a few days 
later and organizes by electing that formidable American, Benjamin 
I'ranklin, President, it forthwith assumes executive and legislative 
power in Pemisylvania, su])[)lanting both Governor and Proyincial 
Assembly, for Franklin is nothing if not radical and courageous. He 
has taken into his own hands it a})pears, all law and authority, swung 
PennsyKania into aecoi'd with the Congress and, like a stout son of 
^'ulcan, is mauling and welding the two bodies into unity and har- 
mony regardless of their })reyious condition severally and of the foreign 
ingredients which made up their composition. This nniscular business 
of Jtdinmcriii;/ out a State does not please the Tories nor yet the Moder- 
ates nor the Quakers, who protest loudly, but Franklin, the chief artisan 
ill the eoiistruction of the new governmental fabric, does not mind them, 
but goes on with his work and the Congress applauds him. 

It is one of the noticeable things m this trying time that the 
I)atriots are philosophic and unterrified. If they have to fight King 
Oeorge's armies anyho\y for their acts they might as well stand in the 
ranks of battle as huge violators of royal authority as face the warlike 
array in tlie character of small recalciti'ants, especially since the effect 
will be the same and musket-balls will not be influenced one way or 
other by the question of tlu' degi-ee of the offences committetl. 

Therefore, Franklin and his (Mi-workers take all the desperate 
chances the situation ofiers and hanie a Constitution which is en- 
forced despite the fact that the people reject it. The war clouds are 
lowering rapidly ; George \\'ashington vacates his seat in Congress as 
nieml.>er from Mrginia to accei)t the post of Commander-in-Chit'f of 
the American Army. Through the stormy Revolutionary period the 




S a 



LOWEIUXU OF THE WAR CLOUDS. 161 

services of the uiii'ixallcd I^'ranklin in the cause of iiis »State ami of 
liis coiintrv sliiiie resplendent, wlietlier on liis native soil or "wliether 
rc[)i-csenting the interests of the nation at tlie Court of the Frencli 
IJepuldic. 

P'roni tlie joyous days innnediately followinu- tlie date of the 
Declaration of Inde])endence the observer of tlie happenings and 
events in this notal)le year of seventeen huiKh'cd and seventy-six will 
gradually find his thoughts moving in a nioi'e sober, if not more 
sombre, channel as the shadow of approaching ills becomes more 
clearly marked and defined. Britain's fighters have their eyes on the 
rel)ellious city, the scene of the Revolutionary Congress and of all 
revolutionary edicts, including tlie most noted one, penned by Jefferson. 
As the year passes and the new one approaches there are many evidences 
of a desire on the part of the British commander to invade and occupy 
the most famous of American towns, and Washington himself antici- 
pates the event. Why should Britain's General not wish to move 
against Philadol|)hia ? It has been the seat of all the troul)le 
Avliich has harassed the King and the Parliament, the most indepen- 
dent, most aggressive and, the King and his ministers may well say, 
the most disloyal. 

The black day of reckoning comes only too sure ; wherewith on 
the sixth day of September, year seventeen hundred and seventy- 
seven, General Howe, with liis cavaliers and troi)})ei-s rides into the 
town at the head of a big army, after having had a vigorous l)out 
with Washington and his lighters on the banks of the Brandywine. 
Patriotic Philadelphia receives the enemy in silence and with much 
secret heart-burning ; unpatriotic Philadelphia, the Tories, turn out 
with music and illumination and many transports of joy. The Con- 
gress has adjourned to Lancaster ; the Liberty Bell, sacred emblem of 
independeiiee, and the chimes of Christ Chureli. wliieh have also been 
guilty of '• proelainiing liberty" — on that day when the Declaration 
was signed, — have likewise departed the town on a brief vacation 
tri]), to be spent under the turf of a certain ])icturesque churchyard 
in Allentown, their destination, however, being unknown to General 
Howe. Previous to and attending the departure of noted men. Con- 
gressmen and others, gloom reigns unchecked and the hoi)0 of the 
patriot is at a low el>b. Even the great Jolni Aihnns is movi'd to 
lament foi- lack of "one great soul who could extricate the best cause 
from that ruin which seems to await it ;" and (lesi)airful Parson 
Muhlenberg cries, "Now Pennsylvania bend thy neck and prepare to 
meet thv God !" 



I(j2 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 

Not yet, friend Muhlenberg ! IJi-ilaiiTs war-iloo-, indolent, well-led, 
panipi red, luxurious in liis liabits, fond of gaming, a devotee of pleasure 
in faet, .spends the Autumn, Winter and 8[)riiig comfortably enough in 
the rebellious city, toasted and cajoled by the Tory residents who are in 
a lii^li state of joy. W^ashington with his ai'iny in the nieaiitinie is at 
\'alley Forge and vicinity ; not so well (juartered and provided for as his 
British antagonist, siuee the bleeding, unshod feet and ragged garb of 
liis soldiers are an actual sight there and not a picture of fancy. The 
winter wears away, the luxurious Howe doing nothing brilliant; occu- 
pying his time gaming and banqueting and making one or two feints at 
attaeking the patriot ( leneral, none of which amounts to anything — save 
perhaps the l)a(tle (if (Jennantown — until the arrival of May, when an 
order comes relieving him of the command and placing Sir Henry 
Clinton in charge. Before another month has passed Britain has 
marched out of Philadeljihia across the Jersey sands, closely pursued 
by the patriot General and his troops. 

It was night of the eigiiteenth day of June, year seventeen hun- 
dred and seventy-eight, Avhen the last of the " King's hated troops " 
made their way across the Delaware, and, landing at barren Gloucester 
Point on the New Jersey shore, looked back on the long dark front of 
the patriot city, silent, ominous, portentious in the waning vision and 
shrouded in the mystery of an unrevealed destiny, world-tilling in its 
historic greatness and civic grandeur. A ])roud night and a glad one 
for the great American town, so still there in this eventful hour under 
the clear June starlight, reflected in the myriad undulations on the 
broad, restless, ever-heaving Delaware stream ! Now friends of Britain, 
including the whole family of Torydom in Philadelphia, wdiose coun- 
tenances are so forlorn on this night when patriots devoutly rejoice, 
well may you borrow and paraphrase that exclamation wrung from 
much agony of soul of good Parson Muhlenberg nine months ago, for 
nothing will better fit your own case ; you, who have been, during 
tlie.se long months of " l^ritish protection," at once informer and 
ca.stigator, inquisitor and jailor, under whose revengeful and cruel 
hands so many of your jiati'iot fellow-eitizens have suffered. 

With Britain's rear-guard clind)ing the banks on the opiwsite 
shore, — even before they have all depai-ted from Philadelphian soil, — 
the patriot troops press into the town. Onward, inq)etuous and eager 
the hurrying throngs in uniform of the " Gontinentals," and — alas ! 
many almo.st in rags, unshod and lean, but with patriot hearts beating 
beneath the worn faded garb, swarm on the trail of the retreating foe 
so mnnerou.sly they seem to ri.se from the earth. As the last of 



PHILADELPHIA'S SKY AGAIN BRIGHTENS. 165 

iJritaiii's lutst tuinl)l('.s into its boats the jtatriot cavalry, under the 
vahant C'a[)tain AUcn McLanc, [)resses on its rear so closely an<l har- 
rasses it so i)ersistently that confusion ensues, and several of the King's 
officers and men fall into the hands of the patriot troops much to the 
delight of loyal Philadelphia and the gallant Ca[)tain McLane. Xor 
does the })ursuit fail here. Washington and his army are soon <n\ 
Jersey soil in hot chase after the proud liosts of Sir Henry Clinton, 
undismayed and more determined than ever to press this war, 
forced upon the American colonies, to a conclusion on the basis of 
the rights set forth in the great Declaration. 

Tlie enemy is gone and Philadelphia again breathes free. How 
quickly the town regains its wonted air of independence and self- 
reliance ! As if conscious tliat the eyes of the world are upon her as 
the champion of right and justice, her spirit, unbroken and un- 
daunted, rises to the supreme height demanded by the occasion, and 
tlienceforth as formerly, the patriot cause finds no lagging, no lack of 
vigorous encouragement, no absence of substantial aid on the part of- 
the freedom-loving Peinisylvanian city. In the space of one week from 
tile time of the departure of the British, the Congress is again meeting 
in the State House, much to the depression and loneliness of Lancaster, 
which had seemed quite another place during the stir and bustle 
attending the assembling there of such a distinguished body of men. 
The Assembly alone remains at the rural town with its background of 
blue-crowned hills and its far-reaching prospect of undulating plains, 
and green valleys, languorous and Eden-like amidst the charm of spark- 
ling streams, hastening in their onward flow to tlie stately Susquehanna, 
(•r leaping southeastward to mingle their waters with that storied creek 
which flows conuneniorative of the early settlers from Sweden and 
Norway, in the ])eaceful days before the advent of Penn an<l his Penn- 
sylvania, — the ( 'hristiana. 

( )ther things and establishments besides tlie Congress come back 
to Philadelphia now that the sky lias cleared and the city is itself again. 
Dunlap and his Pennsylvanian Packet return and at once business is 
resumed at the old place, and American doctrine is poured forth tri- 
weekly by the indeftitiguable editor and publislu-r who is also the 
recipient and custodian of all things advertised as ''lost and found,"' 
and a sort of bureau of general information and employment oftice 
coinltined. (^uit(> ditl'ei'eiit is tlie situation of Ih-nrv Miller, tlie 
(Jerman printer, whose office, the flnest in America, was seized and 
looted, the spoils going to James Robertson, the Tory printer of the 
Pennsylvania (iazcfte, who carried off the property in the King's 



2(j,; THE STORY OF AX AMERICAN CITY. 



wno-ons, alU'uin^' that ({oncral Howe had o-ivcn it to him as com})ensa- 
tidii lor the loss of liis own printnio- ])ro])ertv at All)aiiv, which had 
ht'cn taken h.v the patriots; all of which make it evident that tlie 
fraternal feeling and " honor among the craft" had not reached that 
complete state of development which has later resulted in a sense of 
recognition of the rights of property. 

Torydom in Pluladeli»hia in now travelHng a thorny road ; the 
rttnure.^^s and the Sui)reme Executive Council having taken up its case 
with a determination to make some wholesome examples that the 
])atriotic may find encouragement and the uni)atriotic be taught a 
lesson not soon to be forgotten. Enemies within as well as without 
the American household must be looked after. Accordingly, in this 
summer of seventeen hundred and seventy-eight, a military court- 
martial and ("liief Justice Thomas McKean in the Court of Oyer and 
Terminer are both l)usy with cases, the former dealing with British 
si)ies and deserters from the American army while the latter is engaged 
with numerous cases involving the charge of high treason. Some hun- 
dreds, iiiiiiKhng persons of position as well as thrifty artisans and 
tradesmen, have been attainted by the Congress as traitors, and 
jiroclamations are issued commanding them to come forward and 
.stand trial. A nuinbcr of tlie accused do not appear and cannot be 
found for the excellent reason that they have fled for England on the 
British fleet, having been taken as refugees, leaving land and property 
])ehind to be confiscated and applied to the use of the State. Those 
who are within reach are brought to trial; some acquitted, others 
found guilty and im])risoned. banished or heavily fined, while several 
are hanged — the execution of .Vl)raliam Carlisle, a carpenter, who had 
kc])t one of the city gates for the British, and John Roberts, a miller, 
who had enlisted in the army of the enemy, l)eing the most notable 
of the several cases of capital punishment inflicted by the patriots 
an<l proiluctive of the greatest amount of dismay among the unpatri- 
otic survivors, who feared it was only the beginning of a day of 
reckoning which might not soon have an ending. The court-martial, 
likewise, is doing its work in a business-like way, not calculated to 
revive the spirits or bring cheerfulness to the faces of Tories or the 
unj)atriotic among the Quakers. George 8i)angler. convicted on the 
charge of being a British spy, is hanged on the IMiiladclphia com- 
mons. Lieutenant Lyons and Lieutenant Ford, Ibi-nici-ly in the ser- 
vice of the Conmiittee of Safety's improvised American Xavy on the 
Delaware, l)ut charged with deserting to the Bi'itish <luriiig the attack 
on Fort Miillin. and found guilty, are both sli^t (Hi board one of the 





t^^fhit.. .te^^|ttfK5l*^>f 



ITS (iKi;.\T IXDUSTKIAL GROWTH FORESHADOWED. KJO 



guard-boats in tlio river off (lloucestcr. Patrick McMullcii, a closcrtcr, 
having been convictcil liy tlio court-martial, meets a like fate. 

In the mcanwliilc, tlic Congress having attainted a number of 
citizens as traitors and orderctl ihcm into exile on the eve of tlio 
entrance of the British into the city, now that the enemy has departed 
and it tinds itself back in its old (juailers in the State House, grows 
more lenient and issues a proclamation allowing the exiles to return. 
Among those who are thus permitted to come back to the city of inde- 
})endence are John Penn and Benjamin Chew — late Chief Justice of 
till' })rovince — who have been detained by Congressional order at Hun- 
terdon, New Jersey. Likewise there appear a number of Tories and 
Quakers who had been banished to Staunton, and some of whom have 
aged consideraljly during their enforced sojourn among the Virginian 
mountains. 

Patriotic Philadelphia is now established more firmly than ever on 
her bed-rock principle of liberty and independence. She has shown 
her capacity for suffering in the patriot cause and the obstinate Briton, 
even as he shook the dust of her streets from his shoes and betook 
himself eastward across the Jersey low lands, is forced to confess himself 
vanquished. There is no persuading such a stiff-necked people, and 
the King might as well give them up as a band of unruly traitors. 
Philadelphia, again the seat of government, sliines forth to the world 
as the unyielding American city, and patriots and loA'ers of liberty 
everywhere conjure with her magical name. AMth the storm-centre of 
war removed from her locality her commerce, her industries and her 
richness of inventive faculty, bound once more into active, vigorous 
life. Manufacture in many and various branches is stimulated and 
developed ; gx'nuis and thrift assert themselves and the (Quaker city, in 
the rapid expansion of business interests, the increase in the number 
of factories and mills, attracts attention as the centre of productive 
industry in America. Within her boundaries in these closing years of 
the eighteenth century, even while war is raging- throughout the 
colonies, she manufactures enough cotton goods, })aper, glass, leather. 
Hour and other articles usually include<l in the category of necessaries 
of life to sui)ply the entire |iopulatit)n of Ameriea : and yet her ''age 
of inwntiou "" has scarcely vet had its unol)trusive beuiiniine'. 



CHAPTER X. 

TiiK Ki:a oi" War srccKKDi-.D i!y tiik Era ok Industrial Growth and Invention 
ix i'liii.adki.piiia— tlih ()i.i> and the modekn clty presented in contrast— 
Electrk'Ity and Steam— Early Experiments of Oliver Evans with the 
Tredecessor of the Locomotive — The Age of Steam. 

IN all this talk about Philadelphia in the throes of revolution and of 
an era formative, as well as a period of transition and experiment, 
the mind should keep in view the undoubted fact that the mortal 
of the closing years of the eighteenth century, the time of soul-harrow- 
ing trials and ordeals, who should by any supernatural agency be 
transported back to the earth and landed in his old al)iding-place in 
the city of Penn in this four hundredth Columbian year — and a half- 
year over — would, unless having received previous warning, take 
fright and find himself in "a state of nerves" which only the most 
abundant reassurance and 2)roof of good faith on the part of his host 
or guide, could overcome. If, for example, he should appear about the 
noonday hour .in the centre of Philadelphia with its far-reachino- 
boundaries of more than one hundred and twenty-nine square miles 
and its streets and thoroughfares teeming witli the life and activity of 
a ])opulation exceeding twelve hundred thousand souls, and find as tlie 
initiatory i)erformance greeting his advent, the simultaneous outburst 
of all the shrill and resonant screamers whicli attest tlie i)owcr and 
utility of steam, with their ten thousand variations, it is hardlv a 
question admitting of argument that he would at least be startled and 
probably experience a desire to return whence hv came. J low like 
and how unlike the old Thilailelphia I Tlie ]»eo])le from the be^iiiiii no- 
were a charital)le set ; could hear of no calamity befalling their fellow- 
men in other ])arts of the world without being iiioved to hold meetings, 
appoint committees, raise money and supplies and forward the proceeds 
of the people's bounty to the victims of distrt'ss. Thus, wlien Ports- 
mouth, in the State of New PTampshire, on a cold Januarv ni<iht, vi'ar 
eighteen hundred and tlnve, was laid in ashes ])y tiiv, thc> city of Penn 
no sooner heard tlic news than liei- eitizens asseml)led in publie mt'et- 
ing, subscriptions wciv slartc(l and a i'uwil oC nliiiost ten thousand 
dollars in cash, l)csides loo<l and clothing, were (Hspateht'd to tlie 
unhappy people witliin tbrty-eiglit hours. Likewise (Hd she respond 
with etjual promptness and generositv one wav hUei- when the same 

(17:]) 



1 7 I THE STUKV OF AX AMERICAN CITY. 



(U'striiclivi' I'U'iiU'iU laid w.istc a pdrtioii of Norfolk, A'iruinia, a *ireat 
throng' iif pc(i|)lc assembling in the State House — liow t.lic masses of 
tlio City of Iiitk'])eiuleiice do instinctively flock to that l)uilding in 
times of calamity or of great piihlii- exigencies calling for popular 
action sini-c thosi- early days of the Revolution ! — where some thou- 
sands of dollai's were subseribed and forwarded to the sufferers in tlie 
X'irgiinan town. 

In benevolence and charity and zeal for learning, the character of 
tlie |.eop]e of the eity of Pcuu, the city of the third and greatest of the 
lOnglish colonies, is the same in this day as in the times of old, condi- 
tions atl'ecting the industrial and commercial relations of men and 
nations alone lia\ing eliange(l. The Philadelphia of yore was a quiet 
city. No scream from the throttle of the railway racer disturbed the 
peace of the citizen living so comfortably on Second street, or Front 
stret "over against the river," for there were no railroads and steam 
was known only in connection with tlie brewing of the afterward inter- 
dicte(l tea or coffee and with the simple household uses of man. No 
cohnnns of smoke rose huge and black against the clear light of the 
sky. {\>r the method of using anthracite coal as fuel for mills and 
factories was unknown. The ears of the peace-loving Quakei's were 
not disturbed by the shrieking of whistles as they announced the 
arri\al of the morning or of the noonday or the evening hour. The 
craft that lloated on the broad Delaware, silent witness of the growth 
of Philadeli)hia from its beginning, were devoid of the power to shriek 
the warning note when keel ai)proached keel and threatened disaster 
created consternation on deck. 

( 'liange<l conditions ! Vast stride of human knowledge ! During 
all these olil days, with Philadelphia looking outward, — seaward, — 
with hei- mind on external alfairs as the source of profit and prosperity, 
there lay close within her reach, in her own Pennsylvania, what was 
more than all the wealth of the Indias. All these days the coal and 
iron lay in the liills awaiting the hour when industry should find 
them and release them from the confinement of Earth's laboratory, to 
enable them to contribute their stupendous [)art to the enrichment and 
advancement of the interests of mankind. All these days the forests 
were burned, the furnaces yawned, invention flourished and mankind 
was considered vastly wise. P.ven if the coal bad been unearthed and 
its usefulness demonstrated it wcaild have prolite(l the manufacturer 
and the mill operator little unless they could lind a means of transport- 
ing it to their place of need. It was not until the railroad took its 
place as the ixttential agent of human and industi'ial develoianent that 



ELECTRICITY AND STEAM. 



llic cartli 1k\u;ui to yield its treasiii'c and invention to claim it, (]vi\<^- 
^inu' it forth \n the li^ht ol' day and caiTving it across mountains and 
ureat ri\-ers, over hills and valleys, a ceaseless, unendini;- stream of 
lilaek nniieral, ever greeting the eye in the I'ounding prospect, ever 
tending onwai'd in the wake of the puffing, steaming, smoke-begrimed 
steed of iron, toward the centres of ])opulation, of industrv and of 
commerce. 

A\diat share this city of American independence has had in the 
great awakening written and {)rinted records show. Not alone in 
])atriotism but in science, in invention and in the promotion of the 
polite and useful arts has she earned high distinction and coiitril)ute(l 
to the advancement of civilization. Did not the versatile Franklin, 
founder of ths American Philosophical Society away back in the year 
seventeen hundred and twenty-seven, demonstrate the fact that elec- 
tricity may be attracted in the realm of space and conducted to earth 
by means of an instrument no more complicated than a thread of 
wire ? 

AndMliat has ]iotl)eenx accomjdished since l)y that same electi'icitv 
and its accompanying "thread of wire ! " Yet not alone was the active 
l>rain of Franklin delving into the mysteries of nature, of chemistrv 
and of the science of mechanics. With such a busy, thrifty, industrious, 
comjdex po^ndation of a city where it was wont to ])e the boast, even 
lu'fore the days of the Declaration of Independence, that ''half the 
property owners in Philadelphia wear leather aprons " — thus preparing 
the way for the later equivalent expression — " city of homes." Can it 
lie supposed that new and useful things shall not be discovered and 
apj)lie(l ; that the city of Penn shall give no account of herself to the 
world ? 

Especially since there is a (pieer person with a ([ueer theorv wvn 
now causing some stir in the city ; — a respectable but somewhat vision- 
ary man named Oliver Evans. There is nothing the matter with him ; 
he means well, but he has a hobby, l)?ing possessed of an idea that he 
can impi'ove, even revohitioni/.e. the method of ti'ans])ortation of 
persons and ])ro])erty nuich to the annisement of the tui-npike com- 
panies and th(^ operators of lines of stages. This odd man who i^ro- 
fesses to belieVe that stupendous things may l)e done through the 
agency of the vapory element jiroduced by boiling water, is before the 
judilic a good deal in these early years of the cenlur\- : his fi'iends 
politely listen to him wilh atfected interest ;is he dilates u])on the 
potency of steam ami its power to serve man. and they ti-\- at least to 
not di^coui'agc him. Tln' newspaj)ers tolerate his tIieor\- and describe 



178 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 



sonic of liis latest contrivnnc-cs in the same spirit in wliieli they would 
exploit a eoniinii- halloon ascension. 

Meanwhile the })ersistence in which inventor Evans presses liis 
idea on the public is heoinning to make peo])le talk a good deal ; if 
there is anything of niei'it in his theory, whieli is (lonl)tful, it will intei'- 
fcre somewhat with the traffic of the stage lines. Yet the men of the 
stage coaches hiugh and nudge each other as the inventor with his 
.steam-liobbv comes in siglit ; this steam theory may l^e all right in 
its pi'iipci' place, whic-h seems to ])e in its a])j)licatioii to l)oats where 
the genius of Fulton and Fitch has demonstrated its practicability, but 
what is this talk of the hobby-ridden Evans about a land carriage to 
be drawn by steam? Fie actually makes a proposition in this year 
eighteen hundred and four to the leading turnpike company — Phila- 
delphia and Columbia — to build an engine and a carriage for freight 
under certain conditions set forth, the most salient of which appears to 
be a re(juirement that twenty-five hundred dollars shall be advanced, 
fifteen hundi'cd to be applied to the building of the aforesaid engine, 
five hundi'cd to the production of the carriage, wdiile the remaining 
five hundred >jiall be held in reserve for ''unforeseen expenses." In 
retuin for the capital advanced the invcntoi' will agree that the car- 
riage atorementioned shall be capable of carrying one hundred barrels 
ot fiourat a speed of two miles an hour, thus performing in two days 
the journey, with the stated amount of freight, from Philadelphia to 
Cohnnbia, a work which requires, under existing conditions, three 
days, twenty-five horses, five wagons, and an expenditure of three 
thousand three hundred and four dollars, actual rates. 

1 lie Turnpike ('onipany declines to advance the money, doubtless 
l»eing conscious of the fact that it is doing well enough with its 
wagons and its horses and its live days' time. But thereafter this 
nian {'.vans is a person to be avoided, lie is in search of capital for 
his visionary schcnic and his friends and actjuaintances, when they see 
hnii ai)i)roac]nng, are overtaken by the sudden recollection of a matter 
ol business across the street or around the coriun- which renders them 
unable to meet the man with the steam-hobby and exchange the 
greetings of the day. lias he not been advocating his peculiar idea 
lor years, literally since the year seventeen hundred and seventy-three. 
at least in its ap]ilication to the use of boats, and since seventeen and 
seventy-eight in the matter of its ai)])licabi]ily to carriages on land ! 
If tlie tiling i)ossessed any merit should it not have been demonstratt'd 
long l)efore tliis yeai- of gi'ace eighteen liun<lrcd and lour! Twenty 
six years with a hobby and not yet able to show its j)racticability I 



EARLY EXPERIMENTS OP OLIVER EVANS. IXl 



Yet, not so (rrtaiii ! Tlic indoinitaljlc iiis-i'iitor, in this yoar of 
propositions to tuni|iik(' fonipanics and ]ioin(c(l rejections, cvidcntlv 
knows Ins gronnd. So far from being disniaye(l by the Pliiladelpliia 
and Colninbia monopoly, he pnbhcly offers to wager the sum of three 
thousand dollais tliat he can make a carriage travel by steam faster 
tlian any liorse ! Pliiladelpliia and its turnpike (•omi)ani('S are amazed 
at the eontidenee and boldness of the inventor, who begins to assume 
an aspect in their eyes somewhat dilTerent from tlie man of their 
original idea. However, nobody, not even the stage coach company^ 
wliicli might be supposed to be the body most interested in showing 
to the })ublic the folly of the queer idea, comes forth to meet the 
challenge, whereat the irrepressible champion of the new means of 
transportation is entitled to triumphantly refer all douliting investi- 
gators to his latest unanswered argument. 

Well is it for the public, and the stage coach company, tliat they 
do not })ut the inventor to the test. He is no empty braggart, this man 
Kvans ; a person of active brain and strong conviction, this idea whieh 
he cherishes and which men call queer, may be one of the silent har- 
l)ingers from that unknown realm — world of unfathomed mystery and 
of untold treasure, whose gateway, to the consciousness of this pro.saic, 
everyday world in whi<'li mortals live and breathe and struggle, is 
inseril>ed "Invention" — of great things to be accomplished on earth 
among the races of civilized men. Have people not learned that they 
are not all-knowing, that mucli yet remains unrevealed and that pre- 
eonceive(l opinions and prejudice and self-interested bias of mind are 
not true knowledge? So many persons have been ready to laugh to 
scorn — nav ! have lauuhe(l to seorn — this earnest, nainstakine- man of 
the steam theory ; some even believing that he was lacking in mental 
equilibrium. Is not the question of transportation already solved, in 
this year, eighteen hundred and four? — when a stage coach depart.^ 
once a week from Phila(leli)hia tor Pittsburg, leaving Hotel-keeper Tom- 
linson's jflaee on Market street and reaching its destination bevond the 
high-Hung Alleghenies at the picturesque confluence of the Alleo-henv 
and the Monongahela, in the space of .seven days ! Persons who liave 
tried the journey have written to their friends dilating ujion the 
pleasure they ex}»erienee<l and otherwise ''giving a certitieate of 
character" to the route and method as it were — such rapid, comfortable 
travi'lling. an<l at a cost of only twenty dojhir-^ ])ei- passeno-er with 
eight dollars aihlitional jni' meals '"at good e(iuntr\- inns." 'I'his 
charge likewise ineludes ;in allowanee of tweiUy ])eunds of bami-au'e 
for each passenger. 



182 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 

Let it bo noted that this new line of coaches which tlius Hnks the 
extreme eastci-n and western sections of the State of 1^'nn is praised by 
thr {H-opk- and tlie joiii-nals of tlie day as a marvel in the way of 
enterjtrise and ra})id transit. It will thus be understood and realized 
how inopportune is this idea of improving the latest improved method 
of transportation ; especially since the proposed improvement involves 
as one of its agencies a portable fire witli l)oiling water, an apparently 
])rimitive and crude way of securing force and motion. Men are 
obstinate, however, inventors certainly not excepted, and the new and 
rapid line of stage coaches which connects the Delaware witli the Ohio 
appears to have no effect on the plans or spirit of the persevering 
inventor Evans. What is this announcement printed in the news- 
papers early in the year eighteen hundred and four! The steam 
hol)l)y is now to have a practical test, as this printeil card, a<ldressed 
■'•to the public," clearly indicates. The inventor relates how he built 
a machine for cleaning docks — a heavy mud flat — put wheels to it and 
liropelled it over land by an engine one mile and a half and tlien 
guided it into the Seluiylkill "although its weight was equal to that 
of two hundred pounds of flour." He then fixed a i)addle-wlieel at 
the stern and propelled it by the engine down the Schuylkill and up 
tlie Delaware to the eastern front of the cit}", a distance of sixteen 
miles, leaving all the vessels that were under sail away behind. This 
queer craft, a land carriage and a flat boat combined, named by the 
inventor an '• amphibious digger," is made the subject of an exhibition 
"to the })ul»li(' "' by the enterprising owner, and persons are invited to 
contribute twenty-five cents, if they can afford the sum, one-half of 
which is to be paid to the workmen who have helped Iniild the 
machine. 

The exhihitioii comes off and i)roves successful, the inventor's 
announcement that "the machine is now to be seen moving round 
Centre Square at the expense of the workmen, who expect twenty-five 
cents fi'om every generous })erson who may come to see its o])eration," 
having the effect of drawing a large crowd, the benevolent Mr. Evans 
having added in his card the intelligence that "all are invited to come 
and view it, as well those who cannot as those who can spare the 
money."' 

Tlie demon of steam is evidently not to he suppressed. Tlie 
"amphibious digger" and its movement on wheels by the force of the 
vajiory element creates something of a sensation, and inventor Evans 
finds men coming to shake him l)y the hand who have for some time 
pa.st been keeping out (»f his way. It looks as if he might be success- 



KXIIICITION OF THE "AMPHIBIOUS DIGGER." 185 



fill, in wliicJi case lie lias an invention of no small \-ahu'. Thenceforth 
the name of Ohvcr lOvans is insrj)aral)ly coinicctccl in tlii- minds of 
}»eo})le with everythinu;- relating to the development of power by steam. 
Not long after the exhihition in Centre Sqnare the inventor, grown 
holder and more eoidi<lent nnder [inhlic approval, makes some 
remarkable [)redietions in pi-int ; sa\'s '' the time will eome when 
people will travel in stages moved l>y steam engines at fifteen to 
twenty miles an houi'. .V earriage will leave W^ishington in the 
morning, breakfast at Baltimore, dine at Philadelphia and suj) in 
New York on the same day. Railways will be laid of wood or iron, 
or on smooth paths of In-oken stone or gravel, to travel as well by 
night as by da\'. A steam engine will drive a carriage one hundred 
and eighty miles in twelve hours, or engines will drive boats ten or 
twelve miles an hour, and hundreds of boats will run on the Mis- 
sissippi and other waters as was prophesied thirty years ago (by Fitch), 
but the velocity of boats can never be made ecpial to that of carriages 
upon rails because the resistance in water is eight hundred times more 
than that in air. Posterity will not be able to discover why the Legis- 
lature or Congress did not grant the inventor such protection as might 
have enabled him to put in operation those great improvements sooner, 
he having neither asked money nor a monopoly of any existing thing." 
Words of true pro])hesy, long since fulfilled I — though in the ful- 
tilling too late to rekindle the spark of satisfaction and joy wliich 
men knew so well, flickering in the deep, earnest eyes of the untiring 
enthusiast, working so hard for the faith that is in him, with the charm 
and attractiveness even of gentle woman in aroused sineerity aiul 
zeal, and thrice foreeful and ap[»ealing to the memory in view (»f the 
patient and cheerful perseverance, albeit unrewarded, as the closing- 
words, almost j)atlietic in their mild reproach, so eloquently attest. 
Yet, it is, perha[)s, as well, for the way is still long and tedious for the 
development of this (dierished theory of steam, the combined influences 
of ignorance, prejudice and self-interest being yet to overcome. Plow 
the powerful trio struggle and l»attle with the genius of va|)or through 
a long course of years and how they are ai<led and abetted by a 
formidable enemy known as Canal system ! Everywhere in the city 
and fState of Penn there is talk al)out the necessity of improved means 
of transportation, yet, even Avhen the subject of a railroad is suggested 
Canal appears and makes his bow to the public with the air and 
manner of one who has a prior claim on the attention of his patrons. 
Kail road speaks for consideration in a certain citizens' meeting in the 
Philadelphia ('ourtdiou>e in the month of .Ianuar\-, vear eiuhteen hun- 



1 «0 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 



(li-('«l and twriity-livc, at which assemblage are present such noted 
figures as Genei-al Thomas Cadwahider, Matthew Carey, Joliii Sei'geaut, 
Samuel Chew, Jr., Thomas liiddle, Josiah Randall, Samuel Archer and 
Charles J. Ingersoll. Chief Justice Tilghman jjresides and Nicholas 
l>iddle is Secretary. Public interest is strongly aroused now over a 
certain seheme to dig a (Janal from the Sus(|nehanna to the Allegheny 
and thence to Erie's lake ; the meeting a|)})oints a committee to take 
said proposed im})rovements into consideration. Railroad asks to be 
included in the subject matter of the Committees' deliberations, its 
siiokesman, Mr. Ingersoll, presenting a motion " directing the Com- 
mittee to inquire into the expediency of railroads." 

The Committee takes the matter in hand and discusses it and 
ponders over it for several weeks. An adjourned meeting is called, 
0])portunely at a time which fits in nicely with the enthusiasm and 
felicitations of the friends of the Canal idea who have just completed 
the Schuylkill navigation enterprise and are prepared to show the 
public that, as means of transportation of both persons and freight, 
nothing can excel it. The Committee files in with all the importance 
in expression and bearing usually attaching to such bodies, and 
presents its report. Canal shouts in triumph through ever}^ line of the 
interesting document. If the Committee did obey the motion to 
" inquire into the expediency of railroads " it says nothing about it, 
and Ivailroad must sit silent and chagrined and witness its potent rival 
carry otf the honors of tlie occasion. Yet it is fighting a slow, cautious 
battle. It has its friends here and there, and it entertains no notion of 
retiring from the field. The meeting appoints Chief Justice Tilghman 
a Committee of One to address a memoi'ial to the Legislature on the 
subject of internal improvements. The Committee's report, which sets 
forth " That, in the opinion of this meeting, a communication by water, 
between the Susquehanna and the Allegheny rivers and between those 
rivers and Lake Erie ought to be 0})ened with all practicable expedi- 
tion at such points as a suitable board of skillful and experienced 
engineers may select," recommends that the thing be done at the 
public expense, as the work would l)e "regarded with jealousy in the 
hands of an individual or corporation." 

Meanwhile, the Committee is experiencing an educational process 
which disposes it to give audience to Railroad. The latter is trying to 
make the public understand it ; and the jjublic, whether because of the 
din and cry made by Canal in its irre})ressible war against its rival, or 
whether from the novelty of the subject, finds its comprehension of the 
thing somewhat slow. The Committee jtublishes an address giving 



THE AGE OF STEAM. 189 



inloiiiiutiuiL as to the proper way to construct n I'aili'oail : wlici-cupon, a 
few days afterwards another publication a])))('ais fioiii an uiikiiowii 
source urging the importanco of increasing canal accoinniodalions in 
tlie State. One of tlie facts in coiniection with coininei'cial statistics 
brought out by tlie agitation is the former superioi'ity ol' riiila(lel})hia 
over New York as a ])lace of export ; the figures showing that her 
shipments to foreign ])()rts liad been forty per cent, in excess of those 
of the city on the Hudson until the Canal system, inaugurated in the 
former province of the Dutch, was develo[)ed under ]h' Witt (Tniton, 
since which event New York is rapidly approaching Thiladelpliia in 
commercial greatness. All the more reason why the nuich talked of 
internal improvements of the former i)rovince of Penn should be 
decided upon and vigorously pushed. 

In this conflict in the public mind between the canal and the rail- 
road it is worth while to observe that the canal is already estaljlished, 
in places, wliile the raili'oad is an unknown, unseen and unseeable 
thing. Nobody can tell much about it save what they read in the 
European })rints concerning George Stephenson's experiments in Eng- 
land about this time. The canal has had its "opening day," its 
occasions of honor, and has been toasted, feted and flattered l)y dis- 
tinguislied i)eople in several instances as Philadelphia recalls to her 
glory. Did she not entertain De Witt Clinton during a recent visit as 
the guest of the city, fresh from tlie scene of the triumph of his great 
undertakings in the way of internal improvements in New York, — 
entertaining him to the length of taking him down the Delaware to 
inspect the recently completed Delaware and Chesapeake Canal? And 
now that the Schuylkill Navigation Company's enter])rise is completed, 
is it strange that the friends and stockholders of tlie canal companies 
are i)leased and — what is more to the point — determined not to allov/ 
this idea of a railroad to interfere with tlieir business and their profits? 

That Court house Committee meanwhile seems to be losing sight 
of the interest of the canal companies. Here, in the month of INIarch, 
year eighteen hundred and twenty-five, it is in reality i)ublishing an 
article on railroads with a plan tliereof taken iVoin a ]^uro})ean source. 
The Fnited States (lazctfc, wliich a[)pears to give both sides of the ever 
vital (juestioii impartially, })ublislies a description of a railroad in use 
near Philadelphia, at Leiper's stone (juarries in Delaware County. 
Likewise it has a description of a steam carriage with Www wlieels. 
invented by a certain T. W. Parker, of Edgar County. State of Illinois, 
whicli might as well have been Egy})t at this time, in view of the 
lack of means of rapid conunnnication. l\\i(lently the genius of in- 



1<M) THE STORY OP AN AMERICAX CITY, 



viMitiini is a( woi'k oii all sides, ami it is not canals that oceupv his 
tinu' hut railroads. Tlu're is John Stevens who so thorouiihly con- 
vinees capitalists as well as the State Legislature that railroads are the 
coming means of travel that the important body at Ilarrislnirg passes 
an act giving him and his associates power and authority to go on with 
tlu'ir jiroposed cntcri)rise ; enacting that "John Connelly, Michael 
iJakcr, Horace Hinney, Stephen Girard, Samuel Humphreys, of Phila- 
adclphia ; Knnnoi' Uradley, of Chester County; Amos Ellmaker, of 
Lancaster City, and John Barl)0ur and W^illiam Wright, of Columbia, 
shall be constituted ' the President and Directors and Company of a 
Company to be called The President, Directors, and Company of the 
Pennsylvania Pailroad Company.'" 

The aforesaid John Connelly is named as President to exercise 
office until an election shall be held under the provisions of the Act. 
The Company is given a life of fifty 3'ears, and authorized to issue six 
thousand shares of stock at one hundred dollars per share. Forthwith 
there is much talk about the proposed road, many statements about 
tlie progress of the w' ork wdiich j^rove to be erroneous. Even the usually 
reliable United States Gazette says : " Tlie Pennsylvania iron road is to 
connnence at ILuniltonville." One of the much-interested public 
writes and asks " What is a railroad?" whereat the Gazette editor, being 
too busy to exi)lain, doubtless, refers the question to "some of our cor- 
respondents who may be able to throw light on the matter." 

Thus things go on, — tlie struggle between the canal men who want 
none of this railroad business in Pennsylvania, and the railroad advo- 
cates who see wonders in the experiments with steam. The fourth day 
of August, year eighteen hundred and twenty-five, finds a convention 
in the interest of " internal improvements " in session at Harrisburg, 
Josei)h Lawrence, of Philadelphia, being elected chairman, and Francis 
\{. Shunk and N. P. Hobart, secretaries. 

The canal seems to possess the advantage in this body, resolu- 
tions being adopted favoring the digging of a waterway from the Sus- 
qu(hamia to the Allegheny, and from tlu> latter stream to Lake Erie. 
Only Ibr a brief time, however ! — the railroad is here in convention 
also, and has its friends. By a strange coincidence there is published 
at tliis time, almost in the very hour of the adoption of the canal reso- 
lutions, a paper fi'om A\'illiani Strickland, the gentleman who was st'ut 
abroad by the "Pennsylvania Society for Internal Improvements" for 
tlie purpose of discovering the best means of transj)ortation, and 
making report thereof. He stands forth in the report as a vigorous 
cliam]ii(in of i-aili-oads. ^\'riting from I^(lilllMll■^■ in the month of June, 



r.WALS AND RAILROADS. 195 



ho says, trenchantly: "I state distinctly my full conviction of the 
utility and decided superiority of railways above every other mode as 
means of c-onveyance, and one that ought to command serious atten- 
tion and adoption by the jteo{)le of Pennsylvania." 

The chani])ions of the railroad derive fresh encouragement from 
this letter. The canal men are ecjual to the occasion, liowever, and an 
article appears in the United States Gazette, reprinted from the AVil- 
liamsport Gazette, in which the writer argues that railroads are inex- 
})e(hent in Pennsylvania, and canals are much more economical. 
Again the railroad men meet the challenge, and in the Gazette of tlie 
day following the })ul)lication of the article mentioned, is published 
a long letter in iwxov of their method. The movements in connec- 
tion with railroads is drawing recruits. Here, two months hiter, in 
October, is .James Buchanan — afterwards President of the United 
States — attending a meetiug of citizens in Columbia, and making a 
speech in favor of railroads. Grievous as it is to relate that charter of 
the Legislature giving to .John Stevens and his friends the right to 
build a railroad from Philadelphia to Columbia has not amounted to 
anything, the supposition being strong that all the proposed under- 
taking lacks is money, and that no body of men can be found willing 
to advance a sum sufficient for an enterprise so great and co.stly : or, is 
it money in reahty that is lacking, or faith ? Is not there one among 
those incorporators and directors named Stephen Girard, slirewd and 
thrifty Philadelphian merchant and wealthiest man in I\mnsylvania ? 
If an individual of so much sound judgment and known enterprise in 
business allows this Railroad scheme, with which his name is officially 
connected, to languish, can it be expected that persons outside, with 
money to invest, will stej) forward and risk a ])enny in the thing now 
or hereafter? AVherefore it appears that this ])ersistent and importu- 
ncte visitant, Railroad, which has been knocking at the doors of the 
Legislature and at those of the counting-rooms of merchants and 
bankers, is under some suspicion, an unwelcome character at the 
tem]>les of the monej'-lenders, and altogetlier uncertain, unreliable 
ami unprofitable. The conservative opinion of the day frowns upon 
the newcomer, and they who advocate its claims I'isk nnich in the 
estimate of those who have made a success in the world of l)usine.ss 
and whose disai)proval of any given undertaking means nnicli in dc- 
tennining \\\v popular judgment. Truly tlie man of faith in new and 
novel things, devised for the benefit of mankind, has a rugged road as 
he threads the pathway of a varying public ojjinion founded on pre- 
conceived notions, prejudice, force of habit and real ignorance. Things 



194 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 

arc invented of ^reat worth, as was Oliver ICvans' '' aiiipliihions 
dijirg-er," but the inventor is in advanrc ot" liis day, and his l>rothcr-in- 
niisci'w the pi'oiiiotcr, l»('c'onu's a I'aiiiihnr and not in the least aceept- 
ahle ligure at the haunts of capitalists and of persons of worldly 
inllucnce, cndcavorino: in his strong persuasive way to secure some 
slig'lit rt'cognilioii and support, only to discover in many cases that Ids 
hobby excites doid)t and distrust, because, for one reason, it is some- 
thing new, as if e\'erything in the way of man's handiwork was not 
new at one time or other ! Nevertheless, the inventor and the promoter 
go on over their tliorny road, the real pioneers in all industrial progress, 
and in the course of years if life continues, they find their fellow-men 
educated up to their ideas, and gladly utilizing that which cost them so 
nuich labor and patience, — utilizing it sometimes to their })i'oiit, oftener 
alter all ho]:)e of reward is gone and only the realization of disap})oint- 
ment and keen regrets is left as their portion for the weary toil and effort. 
How many efforts shall begin and fail before Capital in this State 
of I'enn gives countenance to the l\ailr()ad? Here in this session of 
the ht'gislatnre, which grants the incorporators of the Philadelphia 
and (Columbia scheme, their charter is another measure in the uncer- 
tain scale of senatorial deliberation, ])roviding for the construction of a 
railroad from Harrisburg to Pittsburg ; originating in tlie Senate only 
to fail in the House. 

Stevens a^d his friends having failed to make use of the charter 
given them by the Li'gislature the State finally takes the matter in 
hand, constructs the road itself from the Lancastrian city to Plnla- 
delphia, overcoming the problem of obstructive hills by estaldishing 
incline planes, creating a necessity for many transfers Ijut pleasing the 
peoi)le and the shippers of goods immensely. From such small l)egin- 
ning the railroad develops gradually, its j)owerful rival, the Canal 
system, receding from ])ublic favor as the utility of the steam-|)ro])elling 
method advances until the Delaware, and not alone the Ohio and the 
Monongahela, but the great lakes and the gigantic Mis.sissi})])i are 
joined l^y the vast system of the company which bears the name of 
the old Province of Penn and verifies the prophecy of tlie clear-sighted 
Oliver Evans, spoken in an ei'a of experiment and speculative; thought 
when mortals knew not their })owers of nund — save the i)rophet him- 
self — but were groping for that which came with time and circum- 
stances in the first half of the great luneteenth century to revolu- 
tionize — the greatest revolution of all — the state and condition of that 
being called man, as they had been lor all the centuries of which 
civilization has note. 



■^ir 






" * ;*>H » ..»i'^'" ' t " " fLgyj ' . 



■^-r/- '" ^ 




■:. -^J 



CHAPTER XT. 

TiiK Duel between the Caxal and thi: Uaii,i;(iai) sri'i'LK.MKXT::i> u\ a Long and 
Tedious Stru«(;i.e ijetween Gas axd a Poi^ular Prejudice rv which the 
former comes out Victor — First (Jas Pipes ix America laid ix Piiiladehmiia. 

IX all this striving and struggling between the as})iring deviet-s of 
men, clanioi-oiis for recognition, for utilization in the great in- 
dustrial hurly-burly which is evolving each day some new idea 
or proclaiming some fresh discovery for the benefit of mankind, there 
is one thing to be observed in the ever-growing and constantly vital- 
izing Philadelphia : every man has an opinion on the subject of the 
numerous innovations coming up and lie takes position either for or 
against them. This prolonged and uncertain duel between the Canal 
and the Railroad is at the outset greatly to the advantage of the former 
since its claims are self-evident, demonstrable to the averao-e reason, 
and extremely simple. Besides, included among all its ready-made 
converts there are its hosts of especial friends and zealous advocates in 
the persons of those who live along or contiguous to navigable streams, 
which being available as feeders to the Canal and likewise indicating 
in their own smooth flow the most practicable and economical of 
routes, make it reasonably certain that the much-desired water-wav 
will operate in close proximity to their homes and render them easily 
accessible to the large centres of })0[)ulation. 

The untried and untested Railroad, in its early struggle with its 
antagonist, commands no such simple and ready means of accommo- 
dation. It is an undemonstrated, perplexing, occult thing, especially 
in the matter of this incomprehensible theory of steam. The average 
mind cannot fathom the intricacies of an engine, and thei-efoi-e it is 
that the business of an engineer is a skilli'd trade. The Canal recpiires 
no more than a huge ditch filled to a certain dei)th with water, and its 
simple locks and wings operating openly before the eye are cli'arly 
under.standable. But this Railroad idea is dee}) — too deep for the 
average comprehension of the people, and thus the glad promoters of 
the water-way idea of transportation lind the majority largely on their 
side, and for a number of years they hold the disputed ground. The 
clear-minded, far-seeing ()liver Kvans is not here in this yt'ar of grace 
eighteen lunidred and twenty-live \\ lun " internal im}>rovements " is the 
U})})ermost thought in Philadelphia., and when the Canal and the Kail- 
road are having their, for a time, unetjual struggle. 

(1!)7) 



2<)S THE STORY OF AX A.MHRICAN CLTY. 



Yet tluTt' is another tiling- clicitiiii;' attention in tlu'se ])rogressive 
days when the city is growini;- s;) ra[»i(Uy and innovation is clamoring 
for aihnittance at all its doors, d'lie suhjeet of illuniinating the streets 
and iiouses with gas is ever coniing nj), ii-repressihle, nndisposable, 
botliorsonie. There has been reforeiice made hitherto to tlie fact of the 
vast debt owed l>y Americans, by modern civilization for tliat matter, 
to the advanced minds, the ingenuity and the liberal cliaracter of the 
Italians. The members of the politer and philoso|)hic race are ever 
coming up apparently when there is occasion to mention the discovery 
or the introduction of some great boon to mankind. Not alone CVd- 
umbns and Vespucci in their large sphere of action, involving the 
finding and the accurate description of a new world, Ijnt })ainstaking 
Italian scientists and demonstrators have a leading part in the enrich- 
ment of the jieople whose existence on American soil in this era was 
made jMissible by the Columbian event. Thei'o was tlie firm of jMichael 
Ambi'oise & Co., Italian fire-workers, who had an aniijliitheatre for 
exhibitions on Arch street, near Ninth, in the year seventeen hundred 
and ninty-six, wlu'u they created something of a sensation by the dis- 
play of inllanunable gas; representations of "temples, mosc^ues, 
masonic eml)lems and allegorical devices," according to Westcott. The 
siirht of the " inflammal)lo air" was enouo'h to arouse the curiositvand 
the interest of citizens avIio regarded it as a great novelty. The inno- 
vator on the subject of gas apj^eared seven years later, or in eighteen 
hundred and three, in the form of J. C. Henfrey, wdio proposes to the 
Councils that for a consideration he will light the city by gas lights 
"burned in high towers" — evidence clearly that the modern electric- 
light tower can not lay claim to strict originality. The Council refuse 
the proposition, of course ; there is not enough knowledge of the nature 
and ways of this gas* to justify so much risk to life and property. 

Yet the gas question, like the later question of the Eailroad, will 
not rest. Refusal of privileges does not silence it. Another applica- 
is before Councils fourteen years later, in the year eighteen hundi'ed 
and seventeen ; — i)etition of James McMurtrie who wishes to introduce 
gas lighting. Twenty-one years from the date of the Ambroise demon- 
stration, and fourteen years from the time Ilenfrey proposed to illu- 
minate the town with gas from towers, and no gas plant yet ! The 
wheels of ])rogress, ra})id as they seeme(l to move in tliese olden days, 
are verily at a standstill before the eyes of the American of tlie ( 'ohim- 
bian year in this nineteenth century. 

There was J)r. Charles Kugler, one year befoiv James Mc.Mnrlrie's 
application in eighteen hnndred and sixteen, exhibiting to th'_^ }»ublic 



STRUGGLE BETWEEN GAS AND POPULAR PREJUDICE. 201 

ill P(>ale's ^^useuln iii the State Ilou.se "^as li^lits and lamj)S l)unr;ii^ 
witliout wicks or oil;" the effect of which is so satisfactory tiiat 
\\'arren & Wood introduce the gas hght at their new theatre, quite a 
safe venture since the doctor lias a gas ap[)aratus himself with which 
he has heeii providing tlic nieans of illuniination for his own house for 
some months ])ast. it is considered a strange thing that Councils at 
this time and for years thereafter refuse to sanction any production of 
gas under numicipal privilege. There are times when the Councils 
arc more liberal in their views on the subject, and again there are oc- 
casions when they look upon it wdth disfjxvor. For example, Peale, 
who has been lighting his Museum in the State House w4th it for 
several years past, finds the Councils objecting to its continuance in 
the year eighteen hundred and eighteen, and he tlierefore dispenses 
with it, muchto the regret of his patrons. 

Meanwhile the inflammable mystery is Ijeing used in ^hisonic 
Hall, which has a small manufactory producing it for its own service, 
and continues to be used there until the ninth of March, year eighteen 
hnndred and nineteen, wdien the hall is burned, and gas is supposed to 
l)e responsible for the disaster. Yet the Masons are not ready to do 
awav with it, and wlien their hall is rebuilt, in the vear eighteen hun- 
dred and twenty-two, it also has a new gas-works attached. The 
]\[asons have faith in the thing; desire to lay pipes in the streets to 
furni.sh otlier consumers, Init Councils refuse })ermis.sion. Had the 
privilege been allowed the Masons would liave furnished the new" 
( 'hestnut Streat Theatre witli illumination, but as a consequence the 
theatre is lighted in the old way with oil lamps. The struggle 
between gas and the })opular prejudice continues. Even in the year 
eighteen hundred and twenty-five, wdien tlie Canal and liailroad are 
Itegiiining to know each other better as antagonists, gas has its own 
battle in the more restricted territory of the city. An effort is maile in 
the Legislature in this year to pass a bill to incorporate the Phila- 
delphia (Jas Light Company with power io manufacture and furnish 
gas and lay })ipes in the streets. This measure is fair game for all the 
0})i)onents of gas, including the Councils, which becomes thoroughly 
aroused and op})oses the pro})osed legislation so vigorously it is 
(lereate(L Meantime the j)ublic has been busy with protests through 
(lie nieibuni of the newspa[)ers. ( )n(^ eiti/.eii, writing 'o the United 
States (jazcttc, denounces the proposition to light the streets and houses 
with gas as " a folly, unsafe, unsure, a trouble and <i nuisance. Com- 
mon lamps take the sliine off all gas lights that ever exhaled their 



202 THE STORY OF AX AMERICAN CITY. 



intolerable stench." Other citizens declare gas is a nuisance and the 
popular clanior against it is very great. 

The gas men are not discouraged. Granted that they have 
figured out })rospectively a fine protit in tlie business, they are, neverthe- 
less, advanced and progressive, otherwise they would not have the faith 
to ri.sk tlieir lime and Iheir money in such a tiling. They try again 
in tlie year eighteen hunth'cd and twenty-six but without result. The 
("ouncils finally a]^poiiit a committee to inquire into the subject. This 
is a step forward, — an immense stride, in fact, if measured by its past 
course. A certain Robinson & Long — Henry Robinsoii and Robert 
Carey Long — are connected with a scheme for lighting Baltimore and 
they want a similar privilege in Philadel})hia. The Committee of the 
CouiK-ils considers their proposition, and after the lapse of a year the 
Committee re})orts favorably u]ion it. Common Council adopts the 
report, but the Select ]3ranch refuses its assent and the question still 
languishes. Again, in the j-ear eighteen hundred and thirty an 
attempt is made to obtain a charter and i)rivilege, but like all previous 
efforts it fails. 

It is worthy of observation here that in the experience of these 
later endeavors in the direction of securing the gas-light, the Councils 
do not refuse on account of any doubt on the question of the utility 
and merit of the scheme. They have begun to think that if the busi- 
ness of sujtplying gas to streets and to individuals is so profitable as to 
cause men to make such strenuous efforts to get it, the city might as 
well luive the benefit of the scheme itself. Yet the petitions and 
atteiiijjts to secure the coveted prize do not end on account of any new 
attitude on the part of the city. Peter A. Browne })etitions Councils 
for })rivilege to lay a pi})e on Car} tenter street and Lodge alley, crossing 
Seventti street and connecting witli tlie gas-works at the ^Lisonic Hall. 
The Councils finally grant him the ]>i'ivilege asked, Init ho does not 
avjid liiiiiself of it. 

Tlie ( 'oniicils have grown familiar witli the sul)ject, and tlie more 
they know ol' it the more liberal they are becoming. In fact, the 
jteople who are oi)posed to gas niid who swayed the Councils by the 
vigor of their belief for so long a time nvo Ix^oinning to call the 
Councils hard names as they find they are more favorably disposed 
toward gas. Tlieir action does not deter the Councils, however. They 
have a committee a[)pointed especially for the iturpose of dealing with 
this gas question ; committee being instructed to ascertain the cost of 
erecting and ojierating a works with a ca]nicity sufficient to supply the 
city, 'file committee, goes to work with zeal and reports the result of 




CiiKSTNiT Sti;ki;i\ iuum Ij;iii,i;i; I'.rii.iUNc,. Sixtli and (iK^tnut Stitelt^, ]<,(.kiiig ^v^.■^t. 



FIRST GAS-PIPES IX AMERICA LAID IN PHILADELPHIA. 205 



its iiivcstipitioiis and calculations. The business-like proceedings of 
tli(> Councils on the gas (jucstion still further displeases the citizens 
wlio are oi)[)oscd to the thing. liemonstrances begin to flow into the 
chambers of the Councils. One of the members of the op})osition, in 
his remonstrance, ])rotested again,st " the i)lan now in agitation of 
lighting the city with gas as one of the most inexpedient, offensive and 
dangerous nature ; in saying this we are fully sustained l)y the 
accounts of explosion, loss of life, and great destruction of ])roperty 
whci'c this mode of lighting has been adopted. We consider gas to be 
as ignitible as gunpowder and nearly as fatal in its effects." 

I'apei's are submitted likewise in favor of the introduction of gas; 
documents embodying statistics from cities and towns abroad, showing 
the benefit of the thing. AVliile the purpose of the Councils to so legis- 
late as to make the City the owner of the proposed gas-works is clearly 
foreshadowed applications from private persons still flow into the two 
Chaml)ers. i\Iark Richards and James J. Rush write to the Councils 
that they are authorized to offer, in return for the privilege they seek, 
to light four lamps in every square free of charge ; they only desire the 
right to lay pipes and supply consumers. Rejected. D. B. Lee and 
W. Beach propose, in this year eighteen hundred and thirty-four, to 
erect a tower and supply the light therefrom at a moderate cost^ — the 
second occasion in which the towei- figures in this gas controversv. 
Rejected. 

The Councils this year, still non-connnittal, resolve to send an 
expert to Europe to make inquiry as to the use of gas there. The 
emissarv chosen is Samuel A\ Merrick. He sails at once and returning 
in October, eighteen hundred and thirty-four, makes a report strongly 
favorable to gas. This practically settles the controversy. The two 
Chambers in March, year eighteen hundred and thirty-five, jiass an 
ordinance for the ''construction and management of the Philadcli)hia 
Gas Works," and the city has. through all the long siege of i)rivate 
applicants and enterprising i)romoters, come out victor in a matter 
atl'ccting every person and household within her limits. In this out- 
cf)nie the City of Penn takes lier place among her sister towns of the 
land as the first to lay gas mains, erect a [dant, and hirnish to the 
])ublic the new system of illumination, — a precedent entirelv fit and 
pro])er in the leading American city and the i)lace of birth of the 
nation. 





■II' 




MANri-'ACTrKEKs' Ci.ii:, Walnut and I'.road Streets. 



("iiaptp:k XII. 

TlIK TAST in ("ONTIiAST WITH TIIK KaIU.Y YKAKS OF THK GOLUKX ERA — PlIH.ADKLl'IIIA 

OF Ufvoutionaiiy Kays and of iiif. Days of Great Industrial Development 

FNIIKU THK iNFI.l'ENCK OF THE AGE OF INVENTION— TlIE ("ENTENNIAL OF l.S7(i. 

IT is now the staid "oldest Philadelphian,'" willi liis set ways, rigid 
habits, personal reeollections of Revolutionary days — of the first 
Congress and of great deeds attending the birth of a big nation in 
a new world, with Liberty and Independence expressive of its funda- 
mental principle — finds himself, as it seems, a stranger in the city of 
his l)irth, with its stirring memories of devoted patriotism, of self-saeri. 
fice and unfaltering courage and faith through all the ills in the 
power of a despotic foe to inflict. New things are dawning before liis 
failing vision and he gazes uncertain, perplexed and doubtful as he 
rubs his strong-bowed spectacles, scarce knowing whether he is sleeping 
or awake. For, the forces of nature, compounded, united, diffused 
and directed by the power of man are doing things in these days, as 
the years approach the towering milestone of the half-way point in the 
century, which in a less enlightened era would l)e ascribed t<^ the 
might of Satan himself. What means that black, bulky tiling of iron. 
Hying over earth's plane with a lot of wooden carriages in its wake, 
taster than the driven clouds of the heavens, with its long, serpentine 
trail of smoke, slowly ascending and black against the sky in the 
fading evening light? And now — liai'k I a long, loud, ear-piercing 
shi'iek as the flying, steaming thing ap})roaclies the old city of Penn, 
makes it more than ever sure that this aged citizen of heroic memories 
has lived to see strange times and things undreamt of in his earlier 
days. No longer is this renowned revolutionary city, rearing its head 
erect and impressive before the wondering gaze of nations, tlie quiet, 
]>eaceful town of the "Night watch," and of the banquets at that 
famous City Tavern with AVashington, Lafayette, Jolin Adams, 
Koehambeau, M. de Luzerne (the French minister), linn old Chief 
•lustiee jMcIvean, Robei't Morris, Franklin, and the whole ])atriot host. 
so grand and stately in the memory witli tlieir high aims and lotty 
principles, gi'acing the liospitabU' board and pledging with the sj)arkle 
of good wine tlie weal and ]irosperity of the new-born nation. A new 
day lias conie to the American City of Independence as to all cities 
where civilization holds sway ; and the man of Vivirs. as lie gazes U]ion 

(•J()!i) 



210 'fllK STUllY OP AX AMKRICAN CITY. 

the sti'iuige foces and the figures tliat jostle hiiu on tlie street, fresh 
from the uttcnnost [)arts of the hind whence they departed only a few 
days ago, shakes his head sadly and re})airs to his old style home to 
broofl and mecHtate, reviewing ouce more in his memory tlie patriot 
troop in patient, toilsome j)rocession as it moves on that eventful 
march which had its culmination at Monmouth ; oi', later, as with j 
faces hent southward, it streams into town by way of Trenton, Wash- I 
ington, Rochambeau, Chastellux, Knox and IMoultrie, with the cheer- ! 
inu' thousands on all the streets, the dignified Congress and J\[. de | 
Luzerne viewing the s[)ectacle from the State House, with De Soisson- 
nais' brilliant French regiment, with " facings of rose color and white I 
and rose colored plumes in the caps of the grenadiers " creating wild i 
enthusiasm on that memorable and world-thrilling move against Corn- I 
wall is at Yorktown. 

Well may tlie aged citizen muse and yearn for things as he knew 
them of yore. This new world is not his world ; the new day which j 
has dawned is strange and unseemly. Old land-marks are going and ! 
the memory of old things, of great deeds, will be lost in the hurry I 
and confusion of these new and migainly contrivances of men, level- 
ling the earth, penetrating the liills and making people so active I 
and busy they scarcely have time to exchange the courtesies of the i 
day with the ceremonious manner of the olden time. He sees old \ 
structures demolislie(l ; the street along which AVashington and his 
troo])s marched has changed, lost its identity, and the rows of grand | 
buildings wliicli now face it from either side are not the ones he knew ! 
in his younger days. The Delaware front is changed ; great wharves, ' 
far-reaching with theii- tedious miles of "bolted and girded capacity ; 
for ships " stand l)oldly against the deep and restless tidal stream. He j 
walks along Chestnut sti-eet — historic thoroughfare — gazes at the i 
massive buildings of marble and granite and sighs for the old brick ' 
structures so familiar to his younger days, and tlien turning, faces the 
State Plouse I Grand, imposing edifice ! It stands as of yore, and ' 
beneath that memorable dome hangs the world-fame(l bell, unite 
symbol now of an act so sinqtle, yet so great and momentous in its 
effect ui)on the destiny of such a vast and important portion of man- 
kind. So stands, likewise, venerable Carpenters' Hall, scene of the 
first meeting of the Colonial Congress and ever a monument to the 
thrift aiul |)rosperity of the condition of the riiiladelphiaii mechanic. 

With all the improvement, the innovations, industrial expansion, 
consolidation of districts and extension of streets — until out of twelve 
hundred miles thereof nine hmi<lred miles are })aved — the city of 




(^IIKSTNIT Stkkkt, from foriHT of Sevciitli, l.u.kiiiir „ost. 



THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF INDEPENDENCE. 213 

Peiiii lia.s licld last to her tratlitious, to \wv early .spirit of patriotism, 
ol' pliilaiithrojA', of cliarity, of hospitality. And what a spirit of 
patriotism from the beginning ! One year after the Declaration of 
Independence, although in the throes of war she made the most of 
that first anniversary and nevei- did the voice of patriotism rise higher 
and never was celebration more })roper and fit. The Congress is at the 
head of the affair ; gives a dinner to civil and military notal)les at the 
City Tavern, at which RahTs captured Hessian band furnishes the 
music — truly tlie irony of fate was there exemplified I — while a corps 
of deserters from the British army now in the service of Georgia's 
command discharges patriotic salutes, assuredly an open manifestation 
of goodwill toward the patriotic occasion. After their feasting the 
Congress and their g'uests must review a certain famous artillci'v 
battalion, the ^laryland Lighthorse, and likewise a brigade of noted 
fighters from North Carolina, said review taking })laee on Second 
street. ]\Ieanwhile, all the vessels in the harbor display Ijunting, man 
their yards and fire salutes. The great celebration closes in the e^■en- 
ing with the ringing of bells, which joyous demonstration is led by 
the most noted of the lot, the State House giant of the world-rounding 
■lungs. 

The second anniversary of the Declaration comes most happily, 
for many reasons. Britain's hosts leave Philadelphia in May after a 
nine months' stay in tlie patriot town, and we have seen Washington's 
fighters in pursuit across the Jersey meadows, Captain Allen McLane 
and his cavalry ever pressing them closely until on a certain eventful 
day, the twenty-eighth of June, the American army assails the enemy 
at M(vnnouth, and there Britain meets its first great disaster. Sir 
Henry Clinton -with the remnant of his force flees to New York, while 
a great number of his men, eight hundred at lea.st, desert and hasten 
to Philadelphia to join the American cause, arriving on the Fourth of 
July, of all times! Tlu> huge victory of the American arms and the 
presence of the great i)latoon of deserters from the enemy are enough 
to make the dignified Congress go into rhaj>sodies and to re})air for the 
puri)0se of a litting cclcl)ration. both of the amiiversary of the great 
day and of the late victory, to that poi)ular hostelry on Second street, 
the City Tavern ; th(^ Congress having previously been thoughtful 
enough to recommend to the people, in vit'W of the scarcity of candles 
and the heat of the weather, that there be no illumination. 

How this Fourth of July anniversary, celebrated thus by the Con- 
gress and the people of the patriotic American city, Philadeljdiia — 
who of all i)eoi>le had the right to celebrate it — has stamped itself 



214 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 



d(H'i) on tlic lu-art of every Ainerieuii I Tlirougliont tlie space of tlie 
mighty laml. w itli its almost seventy luillioii souls, — nay, l)eyon(l wide 
seas \vhere\ei- I lie Aiiieriean roams, — he knows that wondrous day and 
i(>els th(^thriU in every libru as he recalls to memory the deed enacted 
ill tlif time of (lie tottering infancy of his nation in the old tal)leted 
building of brick, to lie known ever alter as Tnde})en(lenco Hall, in the 
iVmerican town on the bank of the Delaware. What memories the 
dav recalls and what a vast amount of history of this American nation 
is nai-rated when the ivason for its celebi'ation and the consequences of 
tlie thing which was done on that day arc faithfully told ! 

Small wondei' then, if the aged Philadelphian, nearing liis earthly 
goal in the dawn of the golden era of railroads, telegraph and the 
countless a<lditional devices and improvements of man, should look 
back on the stirring days of his youth and marvel at the change, and 
even long for the close of his mortal career ere all things become new 
and strange. For, this new thing among men, the railroad and its 
su]»]»le, sinuous coni})anion, tlie telegraph, are producing marvels even 
greater than themselves, among all conditions of men, and old Nature 
is yielding up her long-hidden secrets on every side until the l;)rain 
reels at the swift succession of wonderful things being revealed and the 
rapidity with which they are revolutionizing the conditions of human 
society, enabling man to see himself as he was in the days of his dark- 
ness and causing him to start appalled at the immense distance he has 
traversed in human knowledge within a period of less than lialf a 
century. Fitting it was that the city of American independence, with 
an energy and precision that ever characterizes her undertakings, 
should have set about and celel»rated the Centemiial of the Declaration 
promulgated from her own Town Hall, by a gn^at World's Exposition, 
the first ever held in the American land, thus gathering together under 
her auspices the best specimens of tlie useful ])roductions of man of 
almost every clime and i-ace. Christian, IMohammedan and Pagan, 
Shall it be said a new era began for this city of Peiin \\\\\\ the Exhibi- 
tion of eighteen hundred and seventy-six — an era of acceleratcHl 
material progress, industrial expansion and architectural transibrma- 
tion? — an enlargement of boundaries, an ap]ilication of manitbld 
ideas associated with municipal improveiiient, novelty, dexterity and 
increased excellence in domestic manufacture, and in the o])eration of 
iiunian ingenuity and talent in many and ^■arious directions. These 
best and cleverest of the bright nations of the earth, wlio, in gala 
])rocession, })our into the city of Independence bearing aloft hands full 
of the latest products of their varied trades and crafts, to display with 



THE CENTENNIAL OF 1.S76. 217 



conoraiulatoiy (lomonstratioii in the hour of national felicity and 
rejoicing, may both teach and learn, for it is no uneoniinon task under- 
taken hy tlie famous American town, but a thing i-e(|uiring all her 
})roverl)ial efficiency and energy to accom[)lish. Shall she who lia> 
sheltered the first American Congress, guarded tlie weal of the infant 
nation, caught with glad surprise the first note of Fame's trum})et 
wlu'U it jiroelaimed the greatness of Washington, and bei'ii from those 
stirring davs tlu' Meeea of all whose eyes brightend at the rays of her 
patriotism an<l bounty — shall this renowned PhihuU'lphia fail in her 
effort, with the world assembled beneath her hos})itable roof and the 
world's products emptied so lavishly at her feet? 

Read the reeoids of the undertaking of eighteen hundred and 
seventy-six ! Unaided l)y that Congress which her patriotism made 
possible, and looking solely to her own exertions, the mammoth build- 
ings were reared, the grounds adorned and beautified in a portion of 
that Fairmount Park, with its twenty-eight hundred acres, and at the 
ajjpointed time was revealed before the eyes of the world the greatest 
exposition of the products of men, American and foreign, known to 
that day in P^arth's history. Thus, in the execution of the task 
involved, was enij)loyed the same spirit and energy which barred the 
Delaware against her mightiest foe, which caught and moulded from 
the disorganized and shifting mass of patriots in the time of the 
nation's direst need, a formidable, organized and disciplined mass of 
fearless militia, and which, through all the turmoil of war, kept her 
industries increasing, lier capacity for useful production growing and 
her area of mills and factories and workslio})S enlarging, to an extent 
that made her capable of supplying her sister States throughout the 
land with all the necessaries and many of tlie luxuries of life, much 
to the chagrin of Britain, which saw no advantage in a bout with a 
rival, large or small, which failed to retard its productive capacity. 

But this city of Pcnn, unlike any in the land, has ever refused to 
remain stationeiy in any portion of her space of one hundred and 
thirty square miles, and thus almost to her remotest limits the smooth 
granite face of her nine hundred miles of pavement tells the story of 
one of the important forms of municipal im})rovenient that attests 
the })rogressive si)irit of her government, ^^'ell may she point to her 
record as a ])uil(U'r of the "habitations of man" — two hundred and 
fiftv thousand buildings, of which two hundretl thousand are .separate 
dwellings, a number sufficient to acconnnodate with a single house 
everv family within tlie limits of the wide-extending town I P.ver the 
citv of comfort this I'hiladelphia of modern days may well echo the 



2\H THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 

ilciiiaiid ciiilMidud ill the spirited elijilK'Ugc of the patriot nicclianie of 
autc-lvevoliitioiKiry days — "Is not lialf tlic pi'()])erty in the town owned 
by men who weai' leather aprons?" The bnlhhngs are reare<l, ten 
thousand of them every year as statistics show, and in the erection 
thereof are j)oured out annually, thi> chief portion to the la1)or em- 
ployed, the sum of twenty million dollars. Not uncared. for and nei;- 
lected hv the jealous municipality are these miles of ever-growing 
habitations of the people: the gas main, t lie water and the drainage 
l)ipes are eonstanlly, watchful an<l serpent-like, following them up. 
f^uir hundred miles of sewers and twenty-six thousand gas lamps, in 
addition to thousands of eleetric lights! How the spectacle of the 
lighted streets of the Revolutionary city in this day would dazzle the 
eyes of Peale of the old museum witli his ])rimitive display of " inflam- 
mable air." or }»rogressive old i)r. Kugler, with his small gas-house 
whieh produced the mysterious fluid "for home consumption I " 

( )!' all things which this town of IVnn has done in her two hun- 
dred and eleven >'ears of eventful existence nothing has been pursued 
more persistently and effectually than her schemes for the education 
of her youth ; public and private schools, academies, colleges, univer- 
sities and institutes having taken root and llourished in every quarter 
of her spacious territory. Two hundred and twenty-nine public school 
buildings, exclusive of public high schools and normal schools ! Then 
there is the vast mai-ble edifice which stands a monument to the ben- 
evolence and wisdom of Stephen Girard ! — its ori)haned boys by thous- 
ands filling positions of eminence, of trust, of profit and responsibility 
in the city and State of its location in this day, thi'ough the beneficence 
of the old merchant and trader who, in the ever-constant evidence of 
the eniliiring character of his work, seems to preside in the spirit 
with benign satisfaction in front of the towering Corinthian pillars of 
the vast pile, so stately in its commanding ])rospect, day by day 
through tiio years, witli tlie inirth-driven peal of the active, buoyant 
figui-es. whose hearts have Ix'en lightened and futures assured throuirh 
his iM.iinty. ever rising from the green in the noon-day or evening 
liour until the still, pallid face of rock set'ms to smiU'. Could the old 
J*hiladeli)hian return in this day and behold the ell'ect of his post- 
mortem iiiHuence he would perhaps ieel that life to him had been a 
source of good, and that the AVealth, accunmlated by so much calcu- 
lating, self-denial and personal sacridre, had not been bestowed with- 
out wise discrimination and judgment. Far-sighted, kindly soul! 
man of grand beiiefieence who, tui-ning his back on liis own France, 
journeys beyond the sea to the new land, an<l casting his lot with the 



STEPHEN GIRARD. 221 



stoiit-hoarted, nuinly AnuTicans in the city of IiMlcpciidcnec, begins 
his wondi'ous career of jjrospcrity and usefuhicss, and stami)S his name 
ineffaceably on the Anifricaii town, as hkewisc on tlic State of his 
adoj)tion. Man of })ro])ity and of far-reaching, unciKhng [)hihinthro})y, 
W(dl does Phihidelpliia honor tlic name and memory of one so wortliy 
of lionoi'! IIo\v tlie nann' (iirai'd is inlix('(l. inwrought, interwoven 
in that of herseh' until the words are synonymous ; — Girard avenue, 
(lirard street, Girard l)ank, Girard row, Girard Gollege, Girard Point, 
being a few of the many designations fixed by a grateful people as a 
reminder ever of the illustrious son of their adoption. Yet, not more 
illustrious than others of the same clime, for this France, which con- 
tested so fiercely her claim to half the wild xVmerican continent, with 
her ancient foe, lias done wonders through her }>atiiots and chivalrous 
champions of human rights in all tlie years of opposition and distress 
in the colonies. No sooner does the grim tocsin of war rive the throb- 
bing air than forth strides Avith di'awii sword and martial purpose the 
noble Lafayette, throwing to the winds the luxuries and the solt 
blandishments of his wonderful Paris, and wafted by proj)itious breezes, 
lauds on the patriot soil and fortliwith repairs to the camp of the 
valiant Washington. 

\\'ashington ! Lafayette ! what stout, unyielding links in the bond 
of friendship between two great nations do these names ty})ify ! 
Gallant, self-sacrificing, noble and chivalrous Frenchman ! How 
bright seem the legions, the gaily uniformed infantry and the plumed 
grenadiers as they move in columned hosts with steadfast tread and 
even ranks, so imposing and gloi-ictus in the memory, causing Phila- 
delphia's streets to resound with elieers from the assembled thousands 
in that eventful time after Moiunoutli wlieii ])atriot hearts ever\-\\here 
beat high, and only the un])atriotic, the foes of lil)erty, were de|)ressed. 
Never were Frenchmen so dear to Americans as on that joyous dav, .so 
remote fi-om the <lark and misty begiiming of the unfoldment of the 
New World when tlie storiii-dri\-en l^ic saw tbrongli tlie sprav of the 
northern sea the grim h(>ad-lands of a soil unknown and strange. A 
di'(\u'v lapse of time liad intervened sinee that event, ami France itseii 
had recorded its exj)erii'iice with exi)lorers and diseoverers long enouo'h 
before these gratefid and a])iireciative Americans, who are so happy in 
their relations of fi-iendship and amity with the descendents of the- 
ancient ( iauls, had any name oi' existence. Even in the seeminglv 
distant day of the Revolution, when Washington and Lafayette and the 
whole grand host of patriots struggled and fought for independenee. 
they could look back to the days of Golumbus and marvel at the 



222 THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN CITY. 

imiiu'iisc stride in liuiiiaii progress since that memorable discovery at 
the iiKuilli of tlio Orinoco; they, whose stately figures loom dim and 
misty ill the reach of years which, to tlie modern man, seems to relegate 
things of only a century ago to the ancient and endless past, there to 
have companionship with Eric and his Norwegians, of an era no less 
distant than ten centuries. 

Thus measuring events affecting this hemisphere, the figures of 
\\'ashington, Lafayette, Rochambeau, Steuben and of the long array 
of ])atriots born of the Revolution, seem quite near and distinct, and 
the hiiitlierly service done by France appears a thing sufficiently recent 
to cause the grateful American of this day to rise hastily, forgetful of 
the slight lapse of years, and experience a desire to at once tender to the 
friendly nation his warmest thanks. That it should be always thus it 
is to be devoutly hoped, for when gratitude to France dies, American 
])atriotism dies. The reader of his nation's history then, shall continue 
to feel himself strangely thrilled when there arises in his mind's eye 
the figure of the courtly M. de Luzerne, the French Minister and the 
friend and sympathizer of the Congress in all its movements ; will 
experience a tlirob of delight as he reads of the celebrations of im})or- 
tant victories by the Congress at which M. de Luzerne was honored 
with the seat at the right of the President, and will dwell with gladness 
on the i)ages which tell of the unprecedented honors paid to Laf\\yette 
on the occasion of his several visits to the country after its government 
had become stable and well established. Fitting and proper it seems 
that if Philadelphia and Pennsylvania are to be indebted to one of 
foreign birth for the greatest of American philanthropic institutions, 
that one should be, of all nationalities in the world, a Frenchman. 
Xnr sli;ill the satisfaction of the descendents of Peiui be less marked by 
tlie rellection that the Frenchman in question died an American by 
adoption, a compliment to the peoj)le among whom he dwelt, charac- 
teristic of his race. 




El f 






Pa>Nll»'> 













h- .: 



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("irAPTER XTIT. 

TiiK City of Pknx axd its (uti.ying Sections— Historical Philadelphia with 

INDL'STRIAI. PlIII.ADKLlMIlA AdDKI) — CroWTII InWkAI.TII AXI) CoXSTAXT IxCREASK 
IN POPrLAIIuN. 

THE City of the Kevolutioii, and the great American city of this 
Continent, JMiila<lel])]iia, is ])huned for being too conservative, 
for not being more noisy, more boisterous and Inistling, in her 
outwani demeanor, a fault of which she may be inchned to admit 
herself guilty. She is not alone a city of business but a city of resi- 
dences in which employers and employes own tlieir liomes and even 
have owiic(l tliem from that day in the year sixteen hundred and 
eighty-two wlien William Penn first set foot on his possessions west of 
the Delaware in America, and }>ersonally saw that his idea of " a green 
country town which should never be burned but always be wholesome " 
was faithfully carried out. The man of small means was given 
unusual inducements to buy property for a home ; spacious boundaries 
were set tliat theie might be room for all and the i)roi)ortion of 
colonists who did not avail themselves of the offer to buy was so small 
it is scarce worth mentioning. It was essentially a buyers' colony and 
not a renters" ; tlie exemplification of the cardinal idea of the founder 
who wislicd to see all those who cast their lot with liim possess their 
homes, that they might feel more free and inde})endent. As the keel 
of the colonization craft was laid so it has remained. Look at the 
statistics of house-erecting in the city ! — the growth of the town 
through a series of years. Four thousand three hundred and ninety 
houses built within the boundaries of the city in the 3'ear eigliteen 
hiiiKh-ed and eighty-three ! A'-et more marvellous still the numl)er one 
year later — four thousand nine hundn'd and thirty-eiglit ! Ti'iilv the 
s])irit of growth is witliin her and continues to be, as the record for 
the year eighteen hundred and eighty-five proves. Tlie num])er of 
houses built in these twelve months is six thousand three lunidred 
and twenty-six. And yet the increase with every year continues — 
lSS(j, 7,561 houses; 1887, 7,695 ; 1888, 8,337 ; 1889, 10,122 ; 1890, 
10,287. jNIarvellous increase and growth ! Yet men complain that 
tlic city of IndeiK'ndence docs not display a scene of bustling activitv 
such as may be witnessed in a town of contracted hmits and scarcitv 
of room for operating its business. This citv of Penn is a larut' citv, 

(225) 



226 THE STORY OF AX AMERICAN CITY. 



SO lari;v that days may bo oecu})ie(l in niakiiig a tour of lirf industrial 
places to till' exclusion wholly of the <i,reat central |iortion in wliicli aro 
the limits of tlu' c»lcl town of lievolutionaiy days and of snbse(|uent 
limes until half a. century afterward. The operation of her many and 
vast industries — her mills and faet(jries and workshoj^s — is conducted 
in various sections near to and remote from the centre; lier Kensing- 
ton, her Ivichmond, Frankford, Tacony and Ilolmesburg in the north- 
I'ast ; her Manaynnk and Germantown on the north ; her Mantna, 
Hestonville and Haddington in the northwest, with West Philadelphia, 
Paschalville and Angora on the west and southwest, and Southwark 
and Moyamensing on the south are all so many cities in themselves, 
centres of stupendous manufactories and of healthful and prosperous 
population, each place, though large and important, being an unsev- 
ered, uninterrupted section of the far-reaching and populous whole, 
with the same system of improvements, the gas mains and the drainage 
and the water-})i[)es penetrating as co[)iously and as abundantly in the 
distant sections as in the grand centre. The scene of the largest 
amount of manufacturing in America, yielding of carpets alone the 
greatest output in the world, this city of Penn is too 'large and too 
roomy to be noisy and bustling ! likewise too busy. Her workmen 
and mechanics, when the day's labor is ended, go to their homes, pur- 
chased by them with the money tliey have earned, comfortably fur- 
nished by the same means and rendered healthful and attractive by 
the yard in front, on side, or in rear with its green })lot of grass and 
blooming I lowers. Tlieir labor and their duties keep them there in one 
or other (»f the great outlying cities of the great city itself and tliey 
see the centre of the town — of the old t(»wn — perha}>s two or three times 
a year. That the city of Penn may be thoroughly known the stranger 
should prepare for a stay of some length of time ; he or she should visit 
the great cities, the outlying limbs of the city, where manufacture and 
industry mcessant, unwearying and endless send forth their music in an 
atmos})liere electrical, vibratory and resonant with the vitalizing subtlety 
and force of combined bu.sy mechanical and human action. The civil- 
i/.e<l world may witness its source of su})ply of many necessary and useful 
things in this Kensington and Richmond and so forth, from eaipets of 
finest make to marvellous record-breaking steel \\ar cruisers ; from 
tapestries and silks and plushes to ponderous fast-tlying locomotives ; 
iVom flannels and worsteils and cassimere to morocco and cordage and 
the best of American flint glass. From the cai-pet mills and the 
textile manufactories, fresh from the loom, come the unending variety 
of jiatterns for shipment, and likewise for display in the mannnoth 



GROWTH IX WEALTH AND INCREASE IN POPULATION. 229 



estaMislmifiits of retail ti'.-idc on Chostiiut and Market .-strct'ts. Ever 
iiK-R'ar^ino" and cxpaiidiiiL!,', the sjilici'f of iiidustriai |)rofluctiveness in 
the town (if Pciiu is bursting through tlic i-t'iuotcst city Hiiiits jiiid 
encroaching on the territory of the surrounding counties to an extent 
that presages a necessity for furtlicr annexation to a nuniici|)al territory 
ah'eady the largest in the woi'ld and the most univei'sallv availahle for 
the construction of houses for its citizens. Wliere will this expansion 
end ? Tlie city of Independence finds nothing new or strange in the 
fact that she is growing larger rapidly, for lias she not been ever 
increasing in wealth as in population ? Here is her land, valued at 
more than two thousand million dollars, selling rates, and vet her 
manufacturing interests demand some further operating room fi-oni the 
atljacent counties? 

A\'ell may the counties look with some apprehension on the 
threatened encroachment on their territory of the ever-increasino- citv 
so true to the promise of her beginning away back in the days of her 
benevolent founder. For, has not her growth in po})ulation in the past 
thirty years been enough to arouse wonder among the most sanguine 
believers in her destiny? Six hundred and seventy-four thousand 
citizens in the year eighteen hundred and seventy, and nine hundred 
thousand ten years later ! Yet, more striking still the increase in the 
following ten years, — one million and fifty thousand in eighteen hun- 
dred and ninety, and one million two hundred thousand in the year 
eighteen hundred and ninety-three! 

With the increase in the nundjer of citizens every year there is 
also an increase in the number of buildings; ten thousand substantial 
structures ascending skyward and rendered complete annually at a 
yearly cost for the lot of twenty million dollars. It is one of the 
peculiar things about this Philadelphia that when any given industry 
readies huge proportions, the conductors thereof, laying aside all 
business rivalry, come together in a spirit of ]>ride and glorification, 
put their hands into their pockets and ei'ect at joint expense a sort of 
Temple of Freedom or Exchange, in which structure all may meet and 
transact business. Thus in late yeais the city of Penn has witnessed 
the rise and development of tlie fainons l')nilders' Exchange, wliidi 
has proved to be the i)recursor to a general consolidation of many and 
varied great interests into one institution of such magnitude and impor- 
tance as to place it, when complete*!, beyond anything of the kind in 
the world. Great have been the prepai'alioiis for the construction of 
the Philadelphia Bourse, and immense will he the benefit to the world 
of business when it shall rise a finished product of the builders 



2;;() 



THE STdKY i)F AX AMERICAN CITY. 



stupendous work. Ea'ct restless" and progressive, the city of Tndopond- 
enee, with Iici' (■(Uiiillcss iii(histrios, boundless faeilitii'S lor coiiiiiicrcc 
•and untold I'csourccs. Hies to tJic business (»!' huildini:,' ;in<l cnlaruiiiii 
;is i-c;idily and ])roiii]itly as it" that first Congressional assemblage in 
the JIall of the ('arpenters had in gratitude evolved a patron saint 
for the town, w hose ins]»iration was the craft that reared tlie walls oi' 
the old histoi'ie pile and made it the home and slieltering jilaee of 
incipient patriotism. 



iieader: Jn this year of aroused }>atriotism and universally 
renewed interest and zeal in the task of historical research, if good 
fortune shall take you to the scene of that greatest of World's cele- 
brations in the city of Chicago, so eloquently described and so vividly 
lectured by Philadelphia's talented son, Colonel Alexander K. McClure. 
where nations from the uttermost i)arts of the earth are meeting in 
glad reunion in honor of this wonderful America, on the occasion of 
the four hundredtli anniversary of its discovery by the })atient and 
tar-seeing Italian, Columbus, fail not to wend your way to a certain 
towered building, so like tlie old Hall of American Independence, 
which men know well ; and in the stately structure devoted to the 
use of Pennsylvania's citizens gaze on the historic bell which })ro- 
claimed tliat lilierty which made the American nation free, as it sits 
there in thes})acious rotunda, exhibited to the world under the aus})ices 
of Philadelphia's Joint Special Connnittee of Councils, and likewise 
view the relics of the days of Penn and of the later jjcriod of the 
devolution, and in their mute eloquence read the heroic and salient 
things oi' Amei'ican historv. 





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